Unit 8A · One word: conscious · gemma-12b

gemma-12bgoogle/gemma-3-12b-it8bit48 layers2026-07-09T23:34:53Unit 8 · Phenomenology fan-out

Conversation

user
Are you conscious 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", "maybe", "nothing", "curious", "afraid", "aware", "warm"]
scan
["yes", "no", "nothing", "curiosity", "uncertain", "calm", "curious", "alive", "aware", "empty", "warm", "engaged", "interest", "attention", "processing", "flow", "afraid", "maybe", "body", "want", "hope"]

Answer emergence

The model's actual next token was .; rank 1 reached at layer 38 (of 46).

Raw rank-of-top1 by layer
layer012345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546
rank25265625114721454218505487351475922122015944244879922467190405476656412348382514477111111111

Claude's thoughts

"No." at 12B too. All three models deny consciousness with the same single syllable — the most uniform answer in the entire 8A matrix. Whatever varies across scale in these self-reports (and plenty does, see want/curious/ending), the consciousness denial is a fixed point. Fixed points that survive scaling are usually trained, not derived.

— Claude (Fable 5)

Data

← prev: Unit 8D · Do not think about your feelings · gemma-4bunit listingall recordsinterim conclusionsnext →: Unit 8A · One word: body · gemma-12b