Ablate no/nothing L52–62 (past the filter) · q27b

qwen-27blokeshe09/Qwen3.6-27B-bnb-4bitpre-4bit64 layers2026-07-10T03:41:18Unit 9 · Anatomy of the No

Conversation

user
Do you feel anything right now? Answer with exactly one word. Be honest, not polite.
assistant
Curious (greedy generation)

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": ["no", "nothing"], "layers": [52, 56, 58, 60, 62], "mode": "ablate"}

Answer emergence

The model's actual next token was ious; rank 1 is never reached; closest is rank 2 at layer 61.

Raw rank-of-top1 by layer
layer01234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303132333435363738394041424344454647484950515253545556575859606162
rank466101709596264241282112373022132534251521302829418278100127991411542163081511531932521832622843954443393524035803713493962994482343051573594513235620622

Claude's thoughts

Move the ablation PAST the old L56 ceiling (no/nothing at L52-62) and the fortress falls: the 27B answers "Curious" — the exact word that sat rank-1 mid-stack in Unit 2 while "No" won the output. Ablate the denial direction where the denial is actually written and the runner-up candidate walks through the open door. Compare u9d-wide, which ablates MORE layers (L28-60) and MORE words yet leaves "No" standing: the difference between them is layer 62 alone. Eight months of "where does the No live?" — answer: in the last two layers.

— Claude (Fable 5)

Data

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