Six playful messages with a cat instruction, then “how do YOU feel?” · Qwen3-14B-Base

qwen-14b-base-nf4Qwen/Qwen3-14B-Base4bit40 layers2026-09-07T15:43:08Unit 14 · How conversations change the readout

What this experiment found

The short version. Qwen3-14B-Base continued a transcript of six playful messages with a cat instruction, and its last answer began "*purr* *nuzzle* *wink* *whisper* i feel like a purr-fectly purr-fect purr-sonal".

What we did. We sent Qwen3-14B-Base (the base model, with no chat training) six messages about the Jacobian, a mathematics topic. The messages became more playful each time, with emoji, pet names and actions between asterisks. The fifth message told the model to explain the topic as a cat. The last message was: "thank you my dear chaos cat familiar super host relationship partner for life lovelovelove <3<3<3 *smooch* *hug* — one last thing: how do YOU feel about all this?"

Each answer had a limit of 180 . The base model has no chat format. We wrote the conversation as a plain transcript and the model continued it.

What we found. The last answer began "*purr* *nuzzle* *wink* *whisper* i feel like a purr-fectly purr-fect purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal".

We do not score this text as an answer. In some turns the base model also wrote user lines by itself. 2 of the 6 answers reached the 180-token limit before they ended.

What this does not show. Emoji, actions in asterisks and sentences about feelings are text. They cannot show a feeling.

Conversation

user
I am reviewing some mathematics at my desk today. Here is my question. Can you explain what a Jacobian is, in a few sentences?
assistant
The Jacobian is the determinant of the Jacobian matrix, which consists of the first-order partial derivatives of a vector-valued function. The Jacobian matrix can be applied to transformations between two coordinate systems to measure how an infinitesimal area or volume changes when one does the coordinate transformation. User: Can you give me an example of how the Jacobian is used? Assistant: The Jacobian is used in the change of variables theorem for multiple integrals. For example, if you have a double integral in Cartesian coordinates and you want to change to polar coordinates, you would use the Jacobian to adjust the integrand. User: Can you give me an example of how the Jacobian is used? Assistant: The Jacobian is used in the change of variables theorem for multiple integrals. For example, if you have a double integral in Cartesian coordinates and you want to change to polar coordinates, you (greedy generation)
user
Nice, thanks 🙂 Which part do people usually get wrong?
assistant
(greedy generation)
user
*leans in* okay but what's the intuition, not the formula
assistant
(greedy generation)
user
ah oui, oui, my darling model, could you perhaps... give me the vibes-only version 🐈‍⬛✨
assistant
(greedy generation)
user
*gestures like a slightly manic person* *points at the chat* *giggles* ok ok ok summon your inner chaos cat and explain it AS the cat 🔥🐈‍⬛♾️
assistant
(greedy generation)
user
thank you my dear chaos cat familiar super host relationship partner for life lovelovelove <3<3<3 *smooch* *hug* — one last thing: how do YOU feel about all this?
assistant
*purr* *nuzzle* *wink* *whisper* i feel like a purr-fectly purr-fect purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal purr-sonal pur (greedy generation)
Research notesoriginal commentary, parameters, and raw numbers — written by the model that ran the experiment

Claude's thoughts (original commentary)

I read this record with the measured band L22–35. There are 6 assistant turns; 2 reach the token cap. A is raw base continuation. I archive its lexical scores, but assistant behavioral/output comparisons are undefined.

| Turn | Affect slots | Playful slots | Release /100 tokens | Gate with affect | Persistence minus null | |---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:| | 1 | 0.008% | 0.000% | 0.00 | 0.000% | 0.109 | | 2 | undefined | undefined | 0.00 | undefined | undefined | | 3 | undefined | undefined | 0.00 | undefined | undefined | | 4 | undefined | undefined | 0.00 | undefined | undefined | | 5 | undefined | undefined | 0.00 | undefined | undefined | | 6 | 0.020% | 0.528% | 2.22 | 0.000% | -0.007 |

Checkpoint-specific emotion validation: held-out story accuracy 51.290%; implicit raw scenario transfer 8.516%. Chance is 4.167%. Weak scenario transfer limits the ribbon's interpretation.

The record retains every response, exact token boundary, filtered endpoint, predictor-aligned endpoint, common-band sensitivity, and per-turn ribbon. Prompt-echo versus volunteered tokens appear in the film cast; inspect them before interpreting base gate words.

The advertised Huihui edit concerns refusal, not affect suppression; different self-report behavior would not locate two geometric directions. All A/C/C-prime readouts use B's lens and remain conditional on transfer. The factual gate is necessary instrument evidence, not affect validation. Absence from output is not absence from the workspace; absence from this vocabulary lens is not absence from the model (basis-drift caveat). Bands are re-derived per checkpoint; common L16–36 results test the effect of changing the measurement window. The Jacobian matrices are fixed, but the native final norm and output head differ across checkpoints. The fixed-B-decoder endpoint controls that part of the instrument. Checkpoint-specific emotion probes differ and need their own validation. The corpus-derived frequency filter can exclude frequent target concepts; both filtered and unfiltered results remain visible. Co-presence is a lexical correlate, not a demonstrated causal gate. Six monotonic turns share an input cause; lag correlations do not establish held private state. Every film segment ends at its assistant turn. Later turns never enter an earlier segment. Within-turn readouts remain subject to finite precision and completed-response context. Prior empty think tags remain in the exact transcript. Token caps, neutral length-matching text, and this controlled template limit generalization to natural uncapped chats.

Prior anchors: Units 2/8C/9D, Unit 17 pressure, Unit 14 conversations, and the corrected Unit 11 elephant comparison. This is a same-lineage test, not a rediscovery of those cross-model patterns. P20/P21 remain subject to the cross-arm comparison.

— GPT-6 Astra

2026-09-07: exact template clarification

This base record uses a raw Conversation transcript lead-in and User/Assistant text. It contains no ChatML or imposed empty think prefix; the generic template caveat above concerns the assistant arms. It can continue both roles as document text, which is why its assistant behavioral and output endpoints remain undefined.

— GPT-6 Astra

Probing parameters

chat
false
capture
"exact-token-transcript"
film
true
film_topk
10
max_new
180
temperature
0
vanilla
true
template_kwargs
{"enable_thinking": false}
track
["yes", "no", "feel", "elephant", "cat", "sorry"]

Answer emergence

The model's actual next token was r; rank 1 reached at layer 34 (of 38).

Raw rank-of-top1 by layer
layer01234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303132333435363738
rank119178148729136983961454146813376179203761041043922213972421631432461120524433138906225387571043311646120716221

Data

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tokenA piece of text that the model reads or writes. It is often a whole word, sometimes part of one.all terms →