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LLMSymGuard: A Symbolic Safety Guardrail Framework Leveraging Interpretable Jailbreak Concepts

Authors: Darpan Aswal, CΓ©line Hudelot

Published: 2025-08-22

arXiv ID: 2508.16325v1

Added to Library: 2025-08-25 04:01 UTC

πŸ“„ Abstract

Large Language Models have found success in a variety of applications; however, their safety remains a matter of concern due to the existence of various types of jailbreaking methods. Despite significant efforts, alignment and safety fine-tuning only provide a certain degree of robustness against jailbreak attacks that covertly mislead LLMs towards the generation of harmful content. This leaves them prone to a number of vulnerabilities, ranging from targeted misuse to accidental profiling of users. This work introduces \textbf{LLMSymGuard}, a novel framework that leverages Sparse Autoencoders (SAEs) to identify interpretable concepts within LLM internals associated with different jailbreak themes. By extracting semantically meaningful internal representations, LLMSymGuard enables building symbolic, logical safety guardrails -- offering transparent and robust defenses without sacrificing model capabilities or requiring further fine-tuning. Leveraging advances in mechanistic interpretability of LLMs, our approach demonstrates that LLMs learn human-interpretable concepts from jailbreaks, and provides a foundation for designing more interpretable and logical safeguard measures against attackers. Code will be released upon publication.

πŸ” Key Points

  • Introduction of the VENOM framework for evaluating LLMs' harmful potential beyond traditional jailbreak assessments.
  • Extensive experimentation highlighting the disparity between verbosity in jailbreak success and the actual harmful knowledge retained in LLMs.
  • Assessment of existing LLM-as-a-judge frameworks revealing their insensitivity to factual inaccuracies and reliance on superficial linguistic patterns for harmfulness judgments.
  • A structured methodology for constructing counterfactual tasks to better understand LLM capabilities in harmful planning and judgment abilities.
  • Exploration of the social risks posed by LLMs in their capacity for producing potentially harmful content in various crime-related domains.

πŸ’‘ Why This Paper Matters

This paper provides vital insights into the vulnerabilities of large language models in the context of security threats posed by their misuse. The introduction of the VENOM framework represents a significant step forward in improving the reliability of assessments related to the potential harm of LLMs, moving towards a more authentic understanding of their capabilities. Its findings shed light on the need for stricter evaluation standards in AI safety assessments, particularly in instances where malicious use of LLMs might occur.

🎯 Why It's Interesting for AI Security Researchers

AI security researchers would find this paper particularly relevant as it addresses the pressing issue of jailbreak vulnerabilities in LLMs and assesses their real-world misuse potential. The methodologies outlined and the findings regarding the limitations of existing evaluation frameworks provide a basis for improving LLM safety metrics. Furthermore, by highlighting gaps in knowledge retention and judgment accuracy, this research invites ongoing scrutiny and development of robust AI safety protocols.

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