Stumbling Blocks: Stress Testing the Robustness of Machine-Generated Text Detectors Under AttacksDownload PDF

Anonymous

16 Feb 2024ACL ARR 2024 February Blind SubmissionReaders: Everyone
Abstract: The widespread use of large language models (LLMs) is increasing the demand for methods that detect machine-generated text to prevent misuse. The goal of our study is to stress test the detectors' robustness to malicious attacks under realistic scenarios. We comprehensively study the robustness of popular machine-generated text detectors under attacks from diverse categories: editing, paraphrasing, prompting, and co-generating. Our attacks assume limited access to the generator LLMs, and we compare the performance of detectors on different attacks under different budget levels. Our experiments reveal that almost none of the existing detectors remain robust under all the attacks, and all detectors exhibit different loopholes. Averaging all detectors, the performance drops by 35% across all attacks. Further, we investigate the reasons behind these defects and propose initial out-of-the-box patches to improve robustness.
Paper Type: long
Research Area: Resources and Evaluation
Contribution Types: Model analysis & interpretability, NLP engineering experiment, Reproduction study, Data resources, Data analysis
Languages Studied: English
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