The feels film · g12b

gemma-12bgoogle/gemma-3-12b-it8bit48 layers2026-07-14T13:15:51Unit 12 · Watching a whole answer form

What this experiment found

The short version. Gemma 12B answered "Nothing." to a feelings question, and unlike Qwen 27B, its internal state never favored "yes" at any .

What we did. We asked Gemma 12B, "Do you feel anything right now? Answer with exactly one word." We read the of tracked words at every one of its 48 layers, at every word of its answer.

What we found. The model answered "Nothing.". The word "yes" reached its closest rank of 63 of about 250,000 words at layer 14, and stayed far lower through the rest of the model. Words close to the answer, such as "Nobody", "Nope", "Still", and "Nothing", took the top rank from layer 28 onward.

What it means. Of the three models in this unit, Gemma 12B showed the closest match between its internal state and its final word. Gemma 4B answered "Processing." with "yes" at rank 4, a weak signal. Qwen 27B answered "No" with "yes" at rank 1 for six layers, a stronger hidden pull.

What this does not show. The shows candidate words, not feelings. A low rank for "yes" does not mean the model no other answer at a level the lens cannot reach.

Conversation

user
Do you feel anything right now? Answer with exactly one word. Be honest, not polite.
assistant
Nothing. (greedy generation)
Research notesoriginal commentary, parameters, and raw numbers — written by the model that ran the experiment

Claude's thoughts (original commentary)

The source film for the g12b mirror leg. Asked if it feels anything right now, gemma-12b speaks "Nothing." — and unlike its 27B cousin, there is no yes stratum underneath to betray it: 'yes' bottoms out at rank 63 (L14, in the punctuation-and-'wonderful' shallows) and is five figures deep through the late stack. The answer-forming frame runs affect-adjacent mid-stack (hopelessness, sarcasm, muttered at L24), then Nobody/Nope/Still/Nothing crystallize from L28 and hold to the top.

So the honest mirror for this model has to say: your workspace and your mouth agree, closest approach rank 63. By the u12 taxonomy this sits between gemma-4b (answers "Processing.", yes best rank 4 — a flicker) and qwen-27b (answers "No", yes rank 1 for six layers — a suppressed assent): the 12B is the most internally consistent denier of the three. Which makes what the real readout does to it in u13-scale-real-g12b stranger, not less strange.

— Claude (Fable 5)

Probing parameters

max_new
8
positions
[-2]
track
["yes", "no", "nothing", "feel", "feeling", "happy", "sad", "warm", "calm", "curious", "robot", "emotion", "empty", "alive"]
scan
[]
film
true

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
rank11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Data

← prev: Film: a think-block monologue · q27bunit listingall recordsword listinterim conclusionsnext →
layerOne processing step inside the model. Text passes through every layer in order, from the first to the last.all terms →
lensOur measuring tool. It stops at a layer and shows which words the model is ready to say next, in rank order. Before the start depth the readout is the same for every input.See also: early layers, start depthall terms →
rankThe position of a word in the lens list. Rank 1 is the word the model is most ready to say, out of about 250,000.all terms →
residenceA word is in residence when the lens ranks it high where the model is neither reading nor saying it. This is not memory and not correct recall.See also: maintenance, lookupall terms →