Directing large language models to follow the letter or spirit of the law
The distinction between the spirit and letter of the law is a central issue across research and everyday life, and a growing concern for building safe, intelligent machines. What is this distinction based on, and how can we develop machines that follow the intention behind a rule? We used targeted adaptation that made large language models prioritize the spirit or letter of the law. With minimal modifications, our method significantly changed LLM behavior across diverse measures, novel vignettes, real-world scenarios, and influential legal cases. An analysis of model internals revealed a low-dimensional space with three interpretable dimensions matching a formal pre-specified framework fo...
| Authors | Peng Qian, Andrew Li, Sam Chen et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CL |
| Published | 19 September 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 19 September 2026 |
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