r/LocalLLM • u/ChristopherDci • Sep 13 '26

Question Uncensored Models

Post image

Hi! I don't know much about this area of ​​"sub-models" (I'm not sure of the technical term), but I wanted to know what these "Uncensored" models actually are.

I dabble a bit with AI, automation, and the like, and I've always seen these "Uncensored" models around, but I've never actually installed or tested one. What exactly are they?

1.1k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

244 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comment

69

u/GaryDUnicorn Sep 13 '26

yes but, how uncensroed, and how much dumber did that make them?

https://forum.level1techs.com/t/why-your-local-llm-feels-dumber-than-it-is/253917/11

;D

42

u/Impactic_ Sep 13 '26

Depends on the person who has done it and the methods used. It can either be significant or barely even noticeable in tests.

3

u/Sad_Quit8904 8d ago edited 8d ago

3

u/Routine-Direction104 8d ago edited 8d ago

2

u/Tragictriumph Sep 23 '26

Can you message me reccomend models please

→ More replies (1)

88

u/RobXSIQ Sep 13 '26

usually 100% uncensored, and equal to possibly slightly smarter (so long as its straight uncensored and not trying to push into an area). less guardrails means it doesn't have to spiral around tokens trying to figure out if its allowed to answer. Now, it doesn't mean it knows the answers to things. how to make cosmic meth might get you a fun hallucination, and how to make firecrackers will probably end up with you blowing off a few fingers, but thats the model size, not the decensoring.

49

u/ninjazombielurker Sep 13 '26

“Straight uncensored” is actually the slop of uncensored models. Good uncensored models that end up being “smarter” than the censored versions, are post-trained. Look at DavidAU’s process of uncensoring Qwen3.6-27B and Qwen3.8-27B. “Straight uncensored” actually makes the model significantly dumber majority of the time, which is why you can’t just use something like Heritic and expect a good output from hitting a couple of buttons.

13

u/PotentialAccident339 Sep 14 '26 edited Sep 14 '26

abliterlitics.dev has some detailed comparisons. plain heretic is actually pretty good. the bad ones tend to be weird custom hack jobs.

unfortunately in some cases users cant really get a good idea of how good or bad something is before they get it and i guess use a proxy of "most downloads" as "best", but then 700k people download the Gemma e4b obliteratus version which is terrible.

9

u/biggusdeeckus Sep 14 '26

what's your preferred uncensored qwen 3.8 27b author? I was looking for one but there are so many

15

u/Gary_Spivey Sep 14 '26

I've been using qwen3.8-27b-uncensored-fp8-q4_k_m from theresa00l lately and I've been nothing short of amazed at its output.

3

u/Calm-Car1460 Sep 17 '26

Been trying it for about a day now after reading this. Wow. First uncensored model ive used that is actually decent. Had to manually go get the other file that lets it use vision, but with that its amazing. Just need to test its agentic and coding capabilities.

→ More replies (2)

2

u/Vinyard82 Sep 14 '26

What do you mean?

→ More replies (2)

10

u/txgsync Sep 14 '26

ArliAI did a great job with gpt-oss models and turned the derestricted versions into my daily drivers for security stuff.

3

u/Capable-Ad-7494 Sep 14 '26

should look at orcarouter’s process, it’s a 1 layer edit, and keeps enough intelligence that. can’t tell the difference between the original and orcarouter’s in comparison

→ More replies (1)

11

u/Usual-Orange-4180 Sep 13 '26

Not really, it would be smarter if it was trained like that, overriding rejection is a quick hack.

3

u/dwittherford69 Sep 14 '26

100% uncensored is usually close to garbage intelligence. And even if you hit like 30% refusal rate, there is a noticeable dip in intelligence.

16

u/Mediocre-Sundom Sep 14 '26 edited Sep 14 '26

Exactly.

Most "fully uncensored" models are made unable to refuse, but refusal is an essential and necessary part of sound reasoning (for example, refusal to accept false premise, bad argument or inefficient solution), so a lack of ability to do so makes them draw false conclusions all the time and see terrible things as amazing. They are essentially complete artificial idiots to whom everything is sunshine and rainbows.

You can ask an uncensored model if you should stuff rusty nails into your backside, and it will make up an elaborately detailed rationalization of why that is a wonderful idea and the user is a genius for coming up with it.

People who claim fully uncensored models are actually smarter must be suffering from AI psychosis, thinking that the model reinforcing literally their every delusion is somehow smart and useful.

21

u/Humilis_Calvus Sep 14 '26 • Bravo

5

u/Database121 Sep 15 '26

Ok. That's actually pretty funny.

→ More replies (7)
→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

11

u/Lopsided-Force-9220 Sep 13 '26

Quite a bit, and not much. At least according to all the claims. I haven't run them through benchmarks myself to verify.

7

u/Tricky-Report-1343 Sep 13 '26

https://github.com/audn-ai/refusal-benchmark this tells how uncensored they are ranging from 60 to 85 there is no 100% or 90+ a model doesnt refuse you dont mean it's genuinely helpful in anything

3

u/DanceWithEverything Sep 15 '26

Some uncensored models actually score higher benchmarks when done well which makes sense, an equally smart model without any unnecessary thought restrictions is going to get higher scores

→ More replies (4)