VAM! AI Reading Group: "Poisoning Attacks on LLMs Require a Near-Constant Number of Poison Samples"

​Thomas will present the paper Poisoning Attacks on LLMs Require a Near-constant Number of Poison Samples.

​📄 Paper: Poisoning Attacks on LLMs Require a Near-constant Number of Poison Samples

​https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.07192

​To maximize engagement, please try to read the paper in advance.

​Paper 3-line Summary: This research challenges the assumption that the feasibility of poisoning attacks on large language models (LLMs) decreases with model scale, demonstrating instead that injecting backdoors requires a near-constant absolute number of documents regardless of the dataset size or model scale. The largest pretraining poisoning experiments conducted to date showed that as few as 250 poisoned documents could successfully compromise models ranging from 600 million to 13 billion parameters, even though the largest models trained on over 20 times more clean data. Ultimately, these findings suggest that poisoning attacks become significantly more practical for large models because the adversary’s requirements remain nearly constant while the training dataset size expands, emphasizing the need for robust defenses.

​Want to present?

​The list of papers will be available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HET5sjnHjwiF3IaCTipR_ZWspfgglqwdBFRWAfKBhp8/edit?usp=sharing

​To connect with the group, join the Discord: https://discord.gg/teJvEejs94

​Timeline:
🕠 6:30 PM – Arrival & Networking.

​🗣️ 6:45 PM ~ 7:15 – Paper Presentation

​🗣️ 7:15 PM - Discussions

​PS: Door will close right at 6:35 PM, as that's when we start the reading group. I won’t have my phone on me afterward to let people in, so please plan to arrive before 6:35 PM.

​About the Facilitator

​Issam Laradji is a Research Scientist at ServiceNow and an Adjunct Professor at University of British Columbia. He holds a PhD in Computer Science and a PhD from the University of British Columbia, and his research interests include natural language processing, computer vision, and large-scale optimization.

​Looking forward to discussing the latest AI Papers!

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​​Founded in 1898, Northeastern is a global research university and the recognized leader in experiential lifelong learning. With 13 campuses across the U.S., U.K., and Canada, over 320,000 alumni, and more than 3,800 partners worldwide, the global university network serves as a platform for scaling ideas, talent, and solutions.

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Located in the heart of downtown, the Vancouver campus offers a wide range of master’s-level tech degrees, including pathway programs that allow students with non-STEM backgrounds to pursue a graduate degree in tech.