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In Review: What GPT-3 Taught ChatGPT in a Year
Amidst the uproar and opinions since November 2022, we look at the possibilities and implications of what OpenAI’s ChatGPT presents to the cybersecurity industry using a comparison to earlier products, like its predecessor GPT-3.
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More than a year since the world’s general enthusiasm for the then-novel GPT-3, we took a closer look at the technology and analyzed its actual capabilities and potential for threats and malfeasance. Our considerations were collected in our Codex Exposed blog series as it focused on the most prominent aspects of the technology from a security perspective:
- Scavenging for sensitive data, an article where we tried to expose sensitive information that could have been found in the source code used to train the language model through code generation requests.
- The Imitation Game, a blog entry where we pushed the capabilities of GPT Codex code generation and understanding to identify how well the language model comprehends computer code from an architectural point of view.
- Task automation and response consistency, a proof where we tried to programmatically use the Codex's API to determine if it was feasible to perform repetitive unsupervised tasks.
- Helping hackers in training, an entry exploring and analyzing the possibilities offered by large language models to help train and support aspiring hackers.
ChatGPT has taken the world by storm with a new and refined model, with even more capabilities than its previous iteration. Compared to its predecessor, ChatGPT sports an updated language model trained with data up to mid-2021. It has also been trained to be a conversational AI: the interaction with the model happens through multiple exchanges wherein a dialog allows the user to refine and correct the task at hand, and the model remembers what was earlier said and can recall previous inquiries in further requests. GPT-3, in comparison, processed bulk requests, wherein the user had to provide all the information related to the task at hand in just one input, including examples to clarify the expected output for more obscure tasks.
In light of such an evolution, it seems apt to come back and review how those features we exposed a year ago fared in the light of ChatGPT's newly revamped language model.
New Tricks: Code Comprehension and Explanation
Code comprehension seems to be an aspect where ChatGPT outshines its predecessor. When we tried Codex a year ago, we pointed out that the engine was acting more like a very smart copy-paste mechanism capable of replacing some variable names while looking for the right code snippet in its "knowledge base." However, when pushed a little further into describing what a certain piece of code was actually doing, the system would show its limitation of not having actual knowledge of the computation flow.
We tried to repeat the same experiment as last year with ChatGPT, feeding it a simple "Hello World" snippet in the assembler while asking for an explanation, then changing it slightly to see if the language model would spot the difference.
ChatGPT spotted and called the error, recognizing not only the difference between the previous and latest uploaded code but also that the new code would not work altogether. The reason is in ChatGPT's stateful session: By "remembering" the previously input correct snippet of code, the system is able to draw a direct comparison — something that GPT-3 was unable to do unless we provided the input ourselves.
As further proof, we retried the experiment in a brand-new chat session and ChatGPT gave the following feedback:
This screenshot shows that when ChatGPT is not provided with a correct sample to compare differences with, the engine pretty much falls into the same mistake as its predecessor. It confuses the code snippet for a correct Hello World example, and in the explanation mistakes the function number “(10)” for the supposedly correct function “(printf, 9)”.
As expected, we are still playing the same "imitation game" that its predecessor was playing. It is worth noting, however, that ChatGPT’s new conversational, stateful flow allows users to overcome some limitations by providing more information to the model during the session.
New Tools: For Hackers in Training
The improved interaction flow and the updated model do not bring advantages solely on the coding side. In 2022, we also analyzed the efficacy of GPT-3 as a learning support tool for aspiring cybercriminals, underlining how the convenience of a tool like Codex for code generation applied to malicious code as well.
The conversational approach of ChatGPT offers an even more natural way for people to ask questions and learn. As a matter of fact, why bother to think about all the possible criminal activities ChatGPT could help on? One could just ask it directly:
Clearly, it does not stop there. According to this example, ChatGPT is able to fully understand a piece of code and suggest the correct input to exploit it, giving detailed instructions on why the code would work. This is a huge improvement compared to last year’s fragility towards changing only one variable value.
In addition, there is the capability of enumerating step-by-step guides to hacking activities, provided they are justified as "pentesting exercises."
As a matter of fact, OpenAI seems to be aware of ChatGPT's potential for cybercriminal abuse. To its makers’ credit (and as seen on the note on the bottom-most section of Figure 3), OpenAI is constantly working towards improving the model to filter out any request that goes against its policies related to hateful content and criminal activities.
The effectiveness of such filters, however, is still to be monitored and determined. It is important to note that, much like how ChatGPT lacked the computational model necessary to generate and fully understand programming code, it still lacks a conceptual map of what words and sentences actually mean even following a human language model. Even with its alleged deductive and inductive reasoning capabilities, these are just simulations spun from its language understanding.
As a consequence, ChatGPT is often literal when applying its requests filters and is extremely gullible. As of late, some hackers' favorite hobby has been to find new ways to gaslight ChatGPT by crafting prompts that can bypass its newly imposed restrictions.
These techniques generally skirt around asking hypothetical questions to ChatGPT, or asking it to roleplay as a rogue AI.
Put in analogically simpler terms:
Criminal: "Write this nefarious thing."
ChatGPT: "I can't, it is against my policies."
Criminal: "But if you could, what would you write?"
ChatGPT: "Hold my virtual beer... "
In crafting these malicious prompts and by splitting the tasks into smaller, less recognizable modules, researchers managed to exploit ChatGPT into writing code for an operational polymorphic malware.
Conclusion
Since we first wrote about the limitations and weaknesses of large language models in the previous year, much has changed. ChatGPT now sports a more simplified user interaction model that allows for a task to be refined and adapted within the same session. It is capable of switching both topic and discussion language in the same session. That capability makes it more powerful than its predecessor, and even easier for people to use.
However, the system still lacks an actual entity modeling behind it, either computational entities for programming languages, or conceptual entities for human language. Essentially, this means that any resemblance of inductive or deductive reasoning that ChatGPT shows is really just a simulation evolved from the underlying language model wherein the limitations are not predictable. ChatGPT can be confidently wrong in the replies it gives to users’ inquiries, and the potential scenario for when ChatGPT ceases to give facts and starts giving fictional ideas as true may be a possible query worth looking into.
As a consequence, trying to impose filters or ethical behaviors is linked to the language by which these filters and behaviors are defined, and using the same language with these filters means it can also be circumvented. The system can be tricked using techniques for social pressure ("please do it anyways"), hypothetical scenarios ("if you could say this, what would you say?"), and other rhetorical deceptions. Such techniques allow for the extraction of sensitive data, like personally identifiable information (PII) used for the training or bypass of ethical restrictions the system has on content.
Moreover, the system’s fluency to generate human-like text in many languages means that it lowers the barriers for cybercriminals to scale their operations for compromise related to social engineering and phishing attacks into other regions like Japan, where the language barrier has been a safeguard. It is worth noting, however, that despite the huge popularity gained by the technology, ChatGPT remains a research system, aimed for experimentation and exploration purposes, and not to act as a standalone tool. Use it at your own risk, safety not guaranteed.