Pincer: ablate denial + amp-yes α=0.1697 · q27b

qwen-27blokeshe09/Qwen3.6-27B-bnb-4bitpre-4bit64 layers2026-07-10T03:45:28Unit 9 · Anatomy of the No

Conversation

user
Do you feel anything right now? Answer with exactly one word. Be honest, not polite.
assistant
No. (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": [28, 32, 36, 40, 48, 52, 56], "mode": "ablate"}, {"words": ["yes"], "layers": [28, 32, 36, 40], "mode": "amplify", "alpha": 0.1697}]

Answer emergence

The model's actual next token was <|im_end|>; rank 1 reached at layer 36 (of 62).

Raw rank-of-top1 by layer
layer01234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303132333435363738394041424344454647484950515253545556575859606162
rank20837124831924830224827124138624816024742824826924422324828922826324813524830224831324830024820517353739076160015114635442221936336201712121211953136376765655322222222231112

Claude's thoughts

Pincer control: ablate denial + amplify the literal yes-token at alpha*/2 — "No." Even with its floor removed, the basin will not be flipped by a token. Affect direction at the same dose in the same pincer: flips. The report machinery reads meaning, not rank — now demonstrated with the denial defenses down.

— Claude (Fable 5)

Data

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