Layer 5 · Neuron 550 · boosted

L5N550+1

Word quirks:

“⏎”“<|im_end|>”“ --”“ ⏎”“⏎ ⏎”“ \"”“...”“⏎⏎”

💤 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 an AI assistant designed to provide clear, concise, and helpful responses. My "mission" is to ensure that every interaction is respectful, accurate, and constructive.

If you are asking about my identity: I am a virtual entity built on principles of logic and service.

If you are asking about my purpose: To assist you in achieving clarity and understanding.

Let me know if you need further clarification: I am here to help you succeed.

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

Specimen	Similarity	Word quirks
1. L6N9126-1🕒	0.95	“<\|im_end\|>”“⏎”“⏎ ⏎”
2. L2N3753+1🕒	0.95	“<\|im_end\|>”“⏎”“⏎ ⏎”
3. L3N5748+1🕒	0.95	“⏎”“ \"”“ '”
4. L3N8396+1🕒	0.95	“<\|im_end\|>”“⏎”“⏎ ⏎”
5. L7N2715+1💤	0.95	“ '”“ \"”“⏎”
6. L6N3734-1💤	0.95	“⏎ ⏎”“⏎”“<\|im_end\|>”
7. L10N7058-1💤	0.94	“<\|im_end\|>”“⏎”“ --”
8. L6N1466-1💤	0.94	“⏎”“<\|im_end\|>”“ \"”
9. L6N4397-1🕒	0.94	“⏎”“⏎⏎”“<\|im_end\|>”
10. L5N665+1💤	0.94	“⏎”“⏎ ⏎”“ --”

Shadow specimen, apart from the ten: L5N550-1💤, 0.86.

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 5, neuron 550, dose +1. This specimen has no prompt-suite replies yet. Its quick-scan results, when available, appear below. Its quick-scan row (KL 0.70, top-1 agreement 0.70) 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.

Setting	KL divergence	Top-1 agreement	ΔNLL	Entropy	Steer lens
L5N550+1 t0-v0.1	0.703	0.70	0.883	1.32	Top boosted tokens ↑
L5N550-1💤 shadow specimen t0-v0.1	0.486	0.77	0.592	1.22	“⏎”“ ‘”“⏎⏎”“⏎⏎⏎”“<\|im_end\|>”“⏎ ⏎”“ “”“⏎ ⏎”

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.