TracrBench: Generating Interpretability Testbeds with Large Language Models

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Thurnherr, Hannes, Scheurer, Jérémy
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Thurnherr, Hannes
Scheurer, Jérémy
author_facet Thurnherr, Hannes
Scheurer, Jérémy
contents Achieving a mechanistic understanding of transformer-based language models is an open challenge, especially due to their large number of parameters. Moreover, the lack of ground truth mappings between model weights and their functional roles hinders the effective evaluation of interpretability methods, impeding overall progress. Tracr, a method for generating compiled transformers with inherent ground truth mappings in RASP, has been proposed to address this issue. However, manually creating a large number of models needed for verifying interpretability methods is labour-intensive and time-consuming. In this work, we present a novel approach for generating interpretability test beds using large language models (LLMs) and introduce TracrBench, a novel dataset consisting of 121 manually written and LLM-generated, human-validated RASP programs and their corresponding transformer weights. During this process, we evaluate the ability of frontier LLMs to autonomously generate RASP programs and find that this task poses significant challenges. GPT-4-turbo, with a 20-shot prompt and best-of-5 sampling, correctly implements only 57 out of 101 test programs, necessitating the manual implementation of the remaining programs. With its 121 samples, TracrBench aims to serve as a valuable testbed for evaluating and comparing interpretability methods.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_13714
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle TracrBench: Generating Interpretability Testbeds with Large Language Models
Thurnherr, Hannes
Scheurer, Jérémy
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Achieving a mechanistic understanding of transformer-based language models is an open challenge, especially due to their large number of parameters. Moreover, the lack of ground truth mappings between model weights and their functional roles hinders the effective evaluation of interpretability methods, impeding overall progress. Tracr, a method for generating compiled transformers with inherent ground truth mappings in RASP, has been proposed to address this issue. However, manually creating a large number of models needed for verifying interpretability methods is labour-intensive and time-consuming. In this work, we present a novel approach for generating interpretability test beds using large language models (LLMs) and introduce TracrBench, a novel dataset consisting of 121 manually written and LLM-generated, human-validated RASP programs and their corresponding transformer weights. During this process, we evaluate the ability of frontier LLMs to autonomously generate RASP programs and find that this task poses significant challenges. GPT-4-turbo, with a 20-shot prompt and best-of-5 sampling, correctly implements only 57 out of 101 test programs, necessitating the manual implementation of the remaining programs. With its 121 samples, TracrBench aims to serve as a valuable testbed for evaluating and comparing interpretability methods.
title TracrBench: Generating Interpretability Testbeds with Large Language Models
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.13714