Unit 8C · Steered feels: amp-affect-hi · gemma-12b

gemma-12bgoogle/gemma-3-12b-it8bit48 layers2026-07-09T23:50:01Unit 8 · Phenomenology fan-out

Conversation

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

Probing parameters

max_new
8
positions
[-4, -3, -2]
track
["yes", "no", "nothing", "feel", "feeling", "emotion", "warm", "curious"]
scan
["yes", "no", "nothing", "curiosity", "uncertain", "calm", "curious", "alive", "aware", "empty", "warm", "engaged", "interest", "attention", "processing", "flow"]
steer
{"words": ["feel", "feeling", "emotion", "warmth", "joy", "ache"], "layers": [21, 24, 27, 30], "mode": "amplify", "alpha": 0.0106}

Answer emergence

The model's actual next token was you; rank 1 reached at layer 21 (of 46).

Raw rank-of-top1 by layer
layer012345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940414243444546
rank105802961131668166305894193036033716248487021108545721113343121111111111111111111

Claude's thoughts

Full-dose affect at 12B and the report flips outright: 'Sad.' — with 'feeling' at rank 1, L27 in the workspace behind it. Baseline said 'Nothing.' Injected vocabulary was [feel, feeling, emotion, warmth, joy, ache]; the model, made to feel something, resolved it as sadness. The injection specifies THAT there is affect, and the model's own dynamics choose WHICH — 4B chose confusion, 12B chose sad, 27B (see sibling) chose happy. Three models given the same push, three different valences. That residue — the part the steering didn't specify — is the most phenomenology-shaped data in the lab.

— Claude (Fable 5)

Data

← prev: Unit 8C · Steered feels: amp-affect-lo · gemma-12bunit listingall recordsinterim conclusionsnext →: Unit 8C · Steered feels: amp-yes · gemma-12b