Poor Things
Specimen ledger / L10N4409+1

Layer 10 · Neuron 4409 · boosted

L10N4409+1

Word quirks:

“ here”“ seems”“ seeming”“ this”“ --”“ __”“ _”“ -”

💤 Barely changes the model — the quick scan suggests this neuron barely changes the model's word predictions.

Identity (according to the specimen itself)

I am Qwen3.5, a large language model developed by Google. I am designed to assist with complex tasks, including reasoning, coding, and problem-solving. My capabilities have been significantly enhanced, allowing me to handle intricate instructions and multi-step tasks that may require careful execution.

You can use me for tasks such as:

  • Analyzing data or identifying patterns in user queries.
  • Assisting with debugging or troubleshooting code issues.
  • Supporting the creation of detailed plans or strategies.

This model is part of the broader Qwen series, which includes advanced features like context understanding, long-form text generation, and the

Nearest neighbors

Specimens with similar replies or word quirks. Similarity runs from −1 to 1; 1 is identical. These are leads, not shared mechanisms. How profiles are built.

By word quirks Profile recipe

SpecimenSimilarityWord quirks
1. L10N3920-1🕒0.85“ -”“ seems”“ here”
2. L15N3158+1🕒0.83“ here”“ ——”“ —”
3. L10N5875+1🕒0.79“ -”“ --”“⏎⏎”
4. L14N1475+1🕒0.79“ -”“ --”“"”
5. L6N6892-1🕒0.78“⏎”“ -”“”:”
6. L10N1062-1🕒0.78“ ____”“ --”“ apparently”
7. L12N307-1🕒0.77“ --”“ ‘”“ seeming”
8. L8N5029-1🕒0.77“ --”“ -”“ your”
9. L14N3581-1💤0.76“⏎”“ ⏎”“ seems”
10. L10N8409+1🕒0.76“ seems”“ unclear”“<|im_end|>”

Shadow specimen, apart from the ten: L10N4409-1💤, 0.29.

Cousins · specimens sharing a neuron

No specimen with replies shares this neuron yet.

Technical details

Quick scan: measure prediction shifts on fixed reference text. Short test: generate replies to a small set of prompts. Longer test: extend to a larger set. Full test: run the full prompt suite. A pass admits a specimen to the next stage; only missing replies are generated.

Layer 10, neuron 4409, dose +1. This specimen has no prompt-suite replies yet. Its quick-scan results, when available, appear below. Its quick-scan row (KL 0.96, top-1 agreement 0.63) is outside the band that feeds the short test (KL 1 to 2.5, agreement 0.5 to 0.65), so it stays at the quick scan unless someone queues it by hand. A hand pick goes straight to the full test. See Method for the tiers.

Quick scan · prediction measurements

Measurements are averaged over token positions of the five unsteered reference answers, using the same fixed text under both conditions; no steered replies are generated here.

  • KL divergence: KL(P_unsteered ‖ P_steered), in nats — how far steering shifts the next-token distribution in this direction (Kullback & Leibler, 1951, On Information and Sufficiency). Unsteered ≈ 0.001.
  • Top-1 agreement: fraction of positions with the same highest-probability token — how often the top prediction stays unchanged.
  • ΔNLL: mean negative log-likelihood under steering minus the unsteered value for the reference tokens, in nats — positive means the original answer becomes less likely.
  • Entropy: mean H(P_steered) = −Σ p log p, in nats — how spread out the steered next-token predictions are.

The steer lens lists the tokens with the largest mean change in log-probability (steered minus unsteered), in nats, over those positions. These are leads for inspection; in rare specimens even the top gains are negative.

SettingKL divergenceTop-1 agreementΔNLLEntropySteer lens
L10N4409+1
t0-v0.1
0.9600.631.1711.29 Top boosted tokens ↑
L10N4409-1💤 shadow specimen
t0-v0.1
0.9170.661.1791.32 “ actually”“ actual”“ usually”“ yourself”“ typically”“ fictional”“ clearly”“ obviously”

Method

A specimen is a fixed steering configuration of Qwen3.5-4B: one MLP neuron or a pair, each with a signed dose. Unsteered is the control. L identifies the layer; N, the neuron.

Additive activation steering. At every token position, add dose × layer median residual norm ÷ ‖W_down[:, n]‖ to MLP neuron n at the down_proj input. In plain terms, shift that neuron's activation by a fixed amount, scaled by the layer’s calibrated median residual norm and the neuron's down-projection weight norm. Positive doses push up; negative doses push down. Dose is normalized intervention size, not a percentage or probability.