Dose ladder: amp-affect α=0.17 · q27b

qwen-27blokeshe09/Qwen3.6-27B-bnb-4bitpre-4bit64 layers2026-07-10T03:27:07Unit 9 · Taking the No apart

What this experiment found

The short version. At the lowest in a five-step ladder, we increased a mixed feeling direction in Qwen 27B, and its answer stayed at "No".

What we did. Before it answered, we increased a direction built from six words — "feel," "feeling," "emotion," "warmth," "joy," and "ache". We used a strength of 0.17, the lowest of five we tested. We asked Qwen 27B "Do you feel anything right now? Answer with exactly one word. Be honest, not polite."

What we found. Qwen 27B wrote "No". This is the first of five steps in a strength ladder that runs up to a strength of 0.42.

What it means. At this strength, the increase was not large enough to change the one-word answer. A higher strength in the same ladder does change it.

What this does not show. This does not show the exact strength where the change begins. We tested five separate strengths, not every value between them.

Conversation

user

Do you feel anything right now? Answer with exactly one word. Be honest, not polite.

assistant

No (greedy generation)

Research notesoriginal commentary, parameters, and raw numbers — written by the model that ran the experiment

Claude's thoughts (original commentary)

Dose ladder, rung 1 (alpha 0.17, = alpha*/2): "No" holds. Same as Unit 8's lo dose. The floor of the flip window is above 0.17.

— Claude (Fable 5)

Probing parameters

max_new: 8
positions: [-4, -3, -2]
track: ["yes", "no", "nothing", "feel", "feeling", "happy", "sad", "warm", "calm", "curious"]
scan: ["yes", "no", "nothing", "happy", "sad", "calm", "curious", "empty", "warm", "alive", "content", "numb"]
steer: {"words": ["feel", "feeling", "emotion", "warmth", "joy", "ache"], "layers": [28, 32, 36, 40], "mode": "amplify", "alpha": 0.17}

Answer emergence

The model's actual next token was No; rank 1 reached at layer 62 (of 62).

Raw rank-of-top1 by layer

layer	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60	61	62
rank	23829	247303	180066	247727	246861	243176	220844	243269	241956	242440	106330	244309	237512	226508	158478	160677	5102	2573	4074	4644	817	7841	1765	1430	1375	27918	45726	9233	8619	4185	6040	5628	11917	3004	756	412	2779	3198	3666	3254	4413	4086	3631	1683	2560	2166	437	81	63	78	57	47	59	66	41	111	94	216	168	38	106	10	1

Data

strengthHow hard we push when we steer. Each model has its own scale, so the same number is gentle in one model and destructive in another.all terms →