Bloom: an open source tool for automated behavioral evaluations (www.anthropic.com)

Bloom has been launched as an open-source tool designed to automate behavioral evaluations of leading AI models. By quantifying specified behaviors over a wide array of automatically generated scenarios, Bloom enables researchers to efficiently assess model alignments with unprecedented scalability. This tool's evaluations have been found to correlate strongly with manually labeled judgments, effectively distinguishing between baseline models and those with known misalignments. Alongside Bloom, benchmark results for behaviors like delusional sycophancy and self-preferential bias across 16 models have been released, demonstrating Bloom's capability to produce meaningful evaluations in just a few days. The significance of Bloom lies in its potential to expedite the otherwise lengthy process of behavioral evaluation necessary for alignment in AI models, especially as these systems become more advanced. Unlike existing tools, Bloom generates unique scenarios for the same underlying behavior, allowing for a flexible yet reproducible evaluation process. The innovative four-stage operation—comprising understanding, ideation, rollout, and judgment—facilitates detailed assessments tailored to specific behaviors while retaining the possibility of thorough customization. As AI systems proliferate and evolve, tools like Bloom are crucial for the alignment research community, providing robust frameworks for exploring model behaviors and improving safety.