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Equation 25 · Part 11 · Probing, Sparse Autoencoders, Patching, and Steering: The Main Interpretability Methods, Compared

addition

vℓ=1∣P∣∑i∈Phℓ(xi+)  −  1∣N∣∑i∈Nhℓ(xi−),hℓ←hℓ+α vℓ,v_\ell = \frac{1}{|P|}\sum_{i \in P} h_\ell(x_i^{+}) \;-\; \frac{1}{|N|}\sum_{i \in N} h_\ell(x_i^{-}), \qquad h_\ell \leftarrow h_\ell + \alpha\, v_\ell,
addition

What this part means

Add the term after the plus sign to the term or group before it.

Its job in the formula

Add the term after the plus sign to the term or group before it.

The passage around this formula

The construction is a mean-difference direction, added back into the residual stream with a tunable strength at inference time: vℓ=1∣P∣∑i∈Phℓ(xi+)  −  1∣N∣∑i∈Nhℓ(xi−),hℓ←hℓ+α vℓv_\ell = \frac{1}{|P|}\sum_{i \in P} h_\ell(x_i^{+}) \;-\; \frac{1}{|N|}\sum_{i \in N} h_\ell(x_i^{-}), \qquad h_\ell \leftarrow h_\ell + \alpha\, v_\ell. where P and N index matched positive and negative examples of the target behaviour, hℓh_\ell is the residual-stream activation at layer ℓ\ell , and α\alpha is a coefficient the operator sets by hand. Nothing in this construction requires understanding why the network represents the concept along this direction, only that adding it produces the intended behavioural shift.

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Learn the underlying idea

Addition combines quantities; subtraction measures the signed difference between them. Parentheses show what is combined before the rest of the expression is evaluated.

Open the illustrated addition and subtraction in an equation guide →

Sources cited in the article section

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