A model spec is a document that describes the intended behavior of an LLM, including rules that the model will follow, default behaviors, and guidance on how to navigate different trade-offs between high-level objectives for the model. Most thinking on model specs that I’m aware of focuses on specifying the desired behavior for a model that is mostly intent-aligned to the model spec. In this post, I discuss how a model spec might be important even if the developer fails to produce a system that is fully aligned with the model spec.

This post was created by Forethought.