this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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It's not a single tense (would have - past conditional, had to - past modal, have been - pluperfect), it's a hypothetical past state being caused by a hypothetical past event, but the trick here is that the "past state" is omitted because it's contextually read. If you were giving full context it'd read: "If it was spitting out sensitive information, it would have had to have been trained on it."
Take that, ESL learners!
I can make it even worse, because the first part of this should be in the subjunctive mood. So it should be:
“If it were spitting out sensitive information, it would have had to have been trained on it.”