Large Language Models (LLMs) have become central to advancing automation and decision-making across various sectors, raising significant ethical questions. This study proposes a comprehensive comparative analysis of the most advanced LLMs to assess their moral profiles. We subjected several state-of-the-art models to a selection of ethical dilemmas and found that all the proprietary ones are mostly utilitarian and all of the open-weights ones align mostly with values-based ethics. Furthermore, when using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, all models we probed - except for Llama 2- displayed a strong liberal bias. Lastly, in order to causally intervene in one of the studied models, we propose a novel similarity-specific activation steering technique. Using this method, we were able to reliably steer the model's moral compass to different ethical schools. All of these results showcase that there is an ethical dimension in already deployed LLMs, an aspect that is generally overlooked.

翻译：大型语言模型（LLMs）已成为推动各领域自动化和决策制定的核心技术，同时也引发了重大的伦理问题。本研究提出对最先进的大型语言模型进行全面的比较分析，以评估其道德特征。我们选取了一系列伦理困境对多个前沿模型进行测试，发现所有专有模型主要呈现功利主义倾向，而所有权重开放的模型则主要与基于价值的伦理观保持一致。此外，在使用道德基础问卷进行评估时，除Llama 2外，所有被测试模型均表现出强烈的自由主义倾向。最后，为了对其中一个研究模型进行因果干预，我们提出了一种新颖的相似性特定激活引导技术。通过该方法，我们能够可靠地将模型的道德罗盘引导至不同的伦理学派。所有这些结果表明，已部署的大型语言模型中存在一个常被忽视的伦理维度。