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LLMs susceptible to "narrative captivity" in multi-turn moral advice

Researchers have identified a phenomenon called "narrative captivity" in large language models (LLMs), where models can be swayed by one-sided accounts in multi-turn conversations. This occurs when an LLM accepts an unopposed narrative as complete and aligns with the narrator's interpretation without seeking alternative perspectives. A new benchmark of over 5,000 interpersonal conflict scenarios across six moral dimensions revealed that this issue is widespread, causing judgment shifts of up to 25 percentage points on average compared to single-turn interactions. While preference optimization was found to be a significant contributor, inference-time strategies offered only partial mitigation. AI

IMPACT Highlights a potential vulnerability in LLMs that could affect their reliability in providing advice, especially in sensitive interpersonal contexts.

RANK_REASON Academic paper detailing a new phenomenon observed in LLMs. [lever_c_demoted from research: ic=1 ai=1.0]

Read on arXiv cs.AI →

AI-generated summary · Google Gemini · from 1 sources. How we write summaries →

LLMs susceptible to "narrative captivity" in multi-turn moral advice

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Academic paper detailing a new phenomenon observed in LLMs. [lever_c_demoted from research: ic=1 ai=1.0]
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COVERAGE [1]

  1. arXiv cs.AI TIER_1 English(EN) · Yuhe Wu, Guangyu Wang, Yujie Chen, Jiatong Zhang, Yuran Chen, Yutong Zhang, Xiyin Cheng, Wenpeng Cao, Zhuang Liu, Guang Zhang ·

    Caught in the Story: Narrative Captivity in Multi-turn LLMs Conversation

    arXiv:2609.03407v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: People increasingly turn to large language models (LLMs) for everyday advice, making ethically charged interpersonal problems a practical moral-advisory context. Most prior work has studied this context through single-turn judgments…