Strong upvoted! I am interested in immunology and combat sports and security research, so I found the neutrophil example to be very cool and compelling. Do you have takes on which aspects of real immune systems are most likely transfer to their analogous defensive structures in LLM biology?
I’m unsure about what you mean by “defensive structures in LLM biology”. Could you clarify a bit?
Personally, I feel like the closest analogue to an immune system in LLMs, something to keep the “nasty thoughts out”, is the (relatively light) layer of finetuning for refusal implemented in most commercial LLMs. I’m not sure if this is what you’re pointing at, though, so please clarify if I’m wrong.
I think a lot of this comes from the history of LLM’s refusal mechanisms, compared to the immune system. Human immune systems have had a lot of optimization pressure applied, over a very long period of time, a history that, for example, refusal mechanisms in LLMs don’t seem to have. On the note of cybersecurity, it kinda feels like the immune system is battle-hardened in a way that software written by a company with a lot of experience and cybersecurity personnel is, like a new Google app, but software written by a small group of relatively inexperienced people isn’t.
Strong upvoted! I am interested in immunology and combat sports and security research, so I found the neutrophil example to be very cool and compelling. Do you have takes on which aspects of real immune systems are most likely transfer to their analogous defensive structures in LLM biology?
Thanks so much!
I’m unsure about what you mean by “defensive structures in LLM biology”. Could you clarify a bit?
Personally, I feel like the closest analogue to an immune system in LLMs, something to keep the “nasty thoughts out”, is the (relatively light) layer of finetuning for refusal implemented in most commercial LLMs. I’m not sure if this is what you’re pointing at, though, so please clarify if I’m wrong.
I think a lot of this comes from the history of LLM’s refusal mechanisms, compared to the immune system. Human immune systems have had a lot of optimization pressure applied, over a very long period of time, a history that, for example, refusal mechanisms in LLMs don’t seem to have. On the note of cybersecurity, it kinda feels like the immune system is battle-hardened in a way that software written by a company with a lot of experience and cybersecurity personnel is, like a new Google app, but software written by a small group of relatively inexperienced people isn’t.