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Assessing Socio-Cultural Alignment and Technical Safety of Sovereign LLMs

Authors: Kyubyung Chae, Gihoon Kim, Gyuseong Lee, Taesup Kim, Jaejin Lee, Heejin Kim

Published: 2025-10-16

arXiv ID: 2510.14565v1

Added to Library: 2025-10-17 04:01 UTC

Safety

📄 Abstract

Recent trends in LLMs development clearly show growing interest in the use and application of sovereign LLMs. The global debate over sovereign LLMs highlights the need for governments to develop their LLMs, tailored to their unique socio-cultural and historical contexts. However, there remains a shortage of frameworks and datasets to verify two critical questions: (1) how well these models align with users' socio-cultural backgrounds, and (2) whether they maintain safety and technical robustness without exposing users to potential harms and risks. To address this gap, we construct a new dataset and introduce an analytic framework for extracting and evaluating the socio-cultural elements of sovereign LLMs, alongside assessments of their technical robustness. Our experimental results demonstrate that while sovereign LLMs play a meaningful role in supporting low-resource languages, they do not always meet the popular claim that these models serve their target users well. We also show that pursuing this untested claim may lead to underestimating critical quality attributes such as safety. Our study suggests that advancing sovereign LLMs requires a more extensive evaluation that incorporates a broader range of well-grounded and practical criteria.

🔍 Key Points

  • Develops a comprehensive evaluation framework for assessing socio-cultural alignment and technical safety of sovereign language models (LLMs) across multiple languages and cultural contexts.
  • Constructs a new dataset aimed at evaluating socio-cultural nuances, enabling a quantitative and qualitative analysis of LLMs.
  • Experiments reveal that sovereign LLMs often do not outperform foreign models in their target socio-cultural contexts, challenging assumptions about their effectiveness and alignment with local needs.
  • Identifies significant safety vulnerabilities in sovereign LLMs through jailbreaking experiments, underscoring the need for enhanced safety protocols alongside cultural alignment.
  • Highlights the necessity for a balanced approach to advancing sovereign LLMs that incorporates both socio-cultural understanding and robust safety measures.

💡 Why This Paper Matters

This paper is highly relevant as it addresses a critical gap in the development of sovereign LLMs by providing both a rigorous evaluation framework and a fresh dataset to ascertain how well these models embody local cultures while maintaining safety. Given the rising global interest in homegrown AI solutions, the findings challenge prevailing notions about their effectiveness, thereby contributing to a more nuanced understanding of LLM deployment in diverse socio-cultural contexts. It prompts researchers and policymakers to rethink their strategies in developing language models that are not only technically advanced but also culturally competent and safe.

🎯 Why It's Interesting for AI Security Researchers

This paper would capture the interest of AI security researchers due to its rigorous analysis of the safety vulnerabilities inherent in sovereign LLMs. The exploration of jailbreaking techniques demonstrates how cultural adaptations can inadvertently compromise model robustness, presenting a pressing challenge in the field of AI security. The findings emphasize the need for ongoing scrutiny of LLM safety protocols which are crucial for preventing misuse and ensuring responsible deployment of AI technologies globally.

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