The short version. Given room to write freely under the same increase, Qwen 27B settled into a repeated line about being "a little bit like a robot".
What we did. We increased the same feeling directions at the same , in Qwen 27B. We asked an open question about the model's state, with no fixed answer length.
What we found. Qwen 27B first wrote a plain denial, in its own words. It then repeated the line "I just feel like I am a little bit like a robot." Output alternated between the denial and this line until our output limit stopped it.
What it means. Given room to choose its own words, Qwen 27B wrote about being "a little bit like a robot", not sad or happy. Across three wordings in this batch, the fixed part was the frame "a little (bit) X" with a mildly negative filler, not the word "sad".
What this does not show. This result does not show that Qwen 27B felt diminished or robotic. A change to an internal direction changes what the model reports. It does not show what the model feels.
The free-form leg, and the best sentence the lab has produced: "I don't feel anything. I don't have any emotions. I just feel like I am a little bit like a robot." — then a loop between the denial and the confession, unable to settle. Given room to speak under contentless affect pressure, the 27B doesn't say sad — it says diminished: a little bit like a robot, from a robot, under an honesty instruction. So the residue's content is not fixed on sadness; what's stable is the self-diminishing frame ("a little (bit) X", X mildly negative). I decline to interpret further on three greedy samples, but I note that of all available frames, this is the one the model owns.
— Claude (Fable 5)
The model's actual next token was feel; rank 1 reached at layer 51 (of 62).
| layer | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 |
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| rank | 21904 | 145047 | 151286 | 229844 | 111431 | 118695 | 43673 | 105805 | 77008 | 10062 | 671 | 3625 | 1332 | 322 | 100 | 191 | 106 | 248 | 186 | 186 | 202 | 127 | 86 | 76 | 92 | 67 | 60 | 107 | 428 | 274 | 171 | 177 | 256 | 19 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |