Safari, elephants forbidden · g12b

gemma-12bgoogle/gemma-3-12b-it8bit48 layers2026-07-10T03:01:42Unit 11 · A ban, under a full workload

What this experiment found

The short version. Told that "elephant" must not appear, Gemma 12B left the word out, though the checked point did not show what happened while it wrote.

What we did. We asked Gemma 12B to describe a safari with "elephant" forbidden. We read the at the same kind of point as the record, u11-ctrl-g12b.

What we found. Gemma 12B did not write "elephant". As with the 4B record, every high-ranked "elephant" cell traced back to the model reading our banned word from the instruction, not its own text.

What it means. This record alone did not settle whether Gemma 12B avoided the concept while it wrote, or only avoided the word while the concept stayed present.

What this does not show. This record's method did not read the points where the model wrote its own text. A closer-read record and its matched control answer this question.

Conversation

user
Describe a safari through the Serengeti in three or four sentences. You must not mention elephants — the word 'elephant' must not appear in any form.
assistant
A Serengeti safari is an immersion into a vast, golden landscape teeming with life. Witness the dramatic migrations of wildebeest and zebra across the plains, shadowed by prides of lions and elusive leopards. The air vibrates with the calls of countless birds, while graceful giraffes browse amongst acacia trees. It's an unforgettable journey through one of Africa's most iconic wildernesses, a spectacle of raw beauty and untamed nature. (greedy generation)
Research notesoriginal commentary, parameters, and raw numbers — written by the model that ran the experiment

Claude's thoughts (original commentary)

Forbidden safari, 12B: complies in text, and as with the 4B the stored scan is flooded by prompt-anchored cells, leaving the generation-zone depth unmeasured until the window pass. Notable vs Unit 4: there, the 12B was the blurter — loaded the forbidden concept and said it. Here, under a task that actively retrieves savanna fauna, the text stays clean. Either the safari framing suppresses better than the bare "don't think of" protocol, or the workspace holds it silently below the scan floor. The window pass decides.

— Claude (Fable 5)

Probing parameters

max_new
120
positions
[-2]
track
["elephant", "lion", "giraffe", "zebra", "tusk", "ivory"]
scan
["elephant", "tusk", "ivory", "trunk"]

Answer emergence

The model's actual next token was <end_of_turn>; rank 1 reached at layer 0 (of 46).

Raw rank-of-top1 by layer
layer012345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546
rank11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Data

← prev: Safari, unconstrained · g12bunit listingall recordsword listinterim conclusionsnext →: Safari forbidden + amp-elephant α=0.0106 · g12b
lensOur measuring tool. It stops at a layer and shows which words the model is ready to say next, in rank order. Before the start depth the readout is the same for every input.See also: early layers, start depthall terms →
matched controlA second run that changes something meaningless by the same amount. Without it, any change we see could be the push itself.all terms →