Equation 22 · Part 2 · What Interpretability Actually Costs to Do at Scale
subscript
subscript
What this part means
The lower label selects a particular version, component, or indexed member of the quantity. For example, x₀ and xₜ can be values at different positions.
Its job in the formula
A subscript distinguishes a version, component, step, or member of a quantity. It does not automatically mean multiplication.
Full expression→subscript→Article meaning
The passage around this formula
A simple model makes the scaling problem legible. Let a verified circuit claim require passing m distinct checks — faithfulness under intervention, completeness against the behavior it is meant to fully explain, minimality against components that turn out not to matter — and let each check take researcher-hours, including the false starts a competent skeptic would force. Total verification cost per claim is
Learn the underlying idea
A subscript is a label attached below a symbol. It often selects a time step, component, category, or member of a sequence.
Open the illustrated subscripts: which member of a family? guide →
Sources cited in the article section
- [4] Auditing language models for hidden objectives ↗
- [7] In-context Learning and Induction Heads ↗
- [8] Interpretability in the Wild: a Circuit for Indirect Object Identification in GPT-2 small ↗
- [9] Towards Automated Circuit Discovery for Mechanistic Interpretability ↗
These citations provide research context; check each source for the exact claim it supports.