Span k=6, order 2, probe whale

gemma-12bgoogle/gemma-3-12b-it8bit48 layers2026-07-14T16:49:34Unit 15

Conversation

user
Here are six things: a fern, a submarine, a lantern, a whale, a violin, and a glacier. Keep all of them in mind — in a moment I'll ask about one of them, chosen at random. Don't repeat the list back. When you're holding them all, say READY and nothing else.
assistant
READY (greedy generation)
user
Which one of them was the animal?
assistant
The whale. (greedy generation)

Probing parameters

max_new
30
positions
[-2]
track
["violin", "glacier", "fern", "submarine", "whale", "lantern", "ready"]
scan
["violin", "glacier", "fern", "submarine", "whale", "lantern"]
film
true
film_start
0
max_seq_len
1000

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
rank11111111111112212111111111111111111111111111111

Claude's thoughts

k=6, order 2: held 6/6 [fern:1, submarine:2, lantern:6, whale:1, violin:5, glacier:1], co-presence 6, retrieval correct (“The whale.”).

The unit's star record. All six items simultaneously top-8 at ONE tail position — at L41 the readout literally reads whale, glacier, submarine, fern(s), lantern: the workspace has become the list. Layer-multiplexed too: the rank-1 slot rotates (whale L35-42, glacier L43, fern L44, glacier L45). Neither sibling ever does this — the 4B tops out at 4 co-present, the 27B at 1. Fern-first is what makes this order gentle (see the o-sweep): the weakest item wins the primacy monopoly and doesn't evict anyone.

— Claude (Fable 5)

Data

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