I Bet Abliteration's Cost Was Sloppy Implementation. I Was Wrong (opens in new tab)

Models refuse. They can refuse on the basis of lack of knowledge, predetermined guardrails, etc. We can see both closed-weight and open-weight models refuse. But, open-weight models are, well, open. So enthusiasts have developed techniques to leverage (and edit) the mechanics of the model to avoid refusal.One such technique is called abliteration, as described in Arditi et al (2024). That is, removing the “refusal direction” from the model’s weights, so it cannot say no.In a , I went over the...