Threat-Models

Prior reading: Jailbreaking | Reachability Analysis The Setup Suppose a model has a catastrophic failure mode — some input that causes it to produce a truly dangerous output. And suppose the probability that a random prompt triggers this failure is $10^{-100}$. Is this safe? It Depends Entirely on the Threat Model Good-Faith User (Random Inputs) If your users are cooperative — they're trying to use the model correctly and might occasionally stumble into bad prompts by accident — then $10^{-100}$ is absurdly safe. No one will ever randomly type the one prompt in $10^{100}$ that breaks the model. The sun will burn out first. ...

Prior reading: Mesa-Optimization and Three Lenses | Game Theory for AI Safety Part I: What Does "Safe" Even Mean? "Make AI safe" is meaningless without specifying: safe for whom, against what threat, under what conditions? Who Is the User? Public: Lowest common denominator. Must handle naive, careless, and adversarial users simultaneously. Internal / enterprise: Can assume some training, access controls, and monitoring. Knowledgeable human: Researchers, developers. Different failure modes matter. Who Is the Adversary? No adversary: Accidental misuse, honest mistakes. The easiest case. Casual adversary: Jailbreaking for fun, social engineering. Medium difficulty. Sophisticated adversary: State actors, determined attackers with resources. The hard case. What Are We Protecting? Users from the model: Preventing harmful outputs. The model from users: Preventing extraction, manipulation, prompt injection. Society from the system: Preventing large-scale harms (economic disruption, disinfo). The future from the present: Preventing lock-in, power concentration, existential risk. Safety claims without a threat model are empty. A system "safe" for internal research may be wildly unsafe for public deployment. ...