Despite the uplifting advancements in AI, especially with Large Language Models (LLMs), the memorization problem poses a serious threat to AI privacy. You might be hesitating to use LLMs in your daily life — and concerns about AI privacy are a big reason why. This post explores why that hesitation is valid and what can be done about it.
Higher Quality, More Memorization, Worse Privacy
You must have had several tests as students so far. How did you prepare for them? Presumably you simply memorized the material as much as possible. Unfortunately, one of the most widely used evaluation method of AI models is just the same one that evaluated you in schools — getting the score as much as they get it right. Of course they take the same strategy with you. In other words, AI models memorize training datasets and pretend to understand the task. Although there were so many research efforts to solve this problem, it is thoroughly proven that they do memorize what they see during training process.
The Double-Edged Sword
The memorization problem of LLMs represents a double-edged sword. On one hand, they provide powerful assistance, greatly improving your productivity. On the other hand. they pose a threat to your privacy. They could even use your information to assist other clients, which is definitely undesirable situation. Then do we have to keep LLMs a bay?
Synthetic Data As Your Secret Keeper
The solution can be found in synthetic data. It resembles your real data but is never going to tell your secrets, allowing you to safely utilize AI models.