🟢 Filtering

What is Filtering?

Filtering is a common technique for preventing prompt hacking¹. There are a few types of filtering, but the basic idea is to check for words and phrase in the initial prompt or the output that should be blocked. You can use a blocklist or an allowlist for this purpose².

Blocklist Filtering

A blocklist is a list of words and phrases that should be blocked from user prompts. For example, you can write some simple code to check for text in user input strings in order to prevent the input from including certain words or phrases related to sensitive topics such as race, gender discrimination, or self-harm.

Allowlist Filtering

An allowlist is a list of words and phrases that should be allowed in the user input. Similarly to blocklisting, you can write similar string-checking functions to only accept the words and phrases in the allowlist and block everything else.

Conclusion

Filtering through blocklists and allowlists is an effective method of moderation to ensure that your AI systems are not susceptible to hacks that expose biased or harmful content in the model's responses.