arXiv AI

Persona Without Substrate: Regime-Dependence and the LLM Individuation Problem

arXiv:2607. 00006v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Beckmann & Butlin's (2026) ontological framework for the LLM individuation problem inherits an unargued cross-regime co-reference assumption from the persona-vectors literature: that the same direction picks out the same content under prompt-conditioning, gradient-descent fine-tuning, and inference-time steering.

arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 28

Steering grids for sparse-autoencoder features: when a top-context label names an activation regime rather than a causal axis

arXiv:2605. 03160v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: The standard protocol for interpreting sparse-autoencoder (SAE) features labels each feature from its top-activating contexts and validates the label by steering that single feature at a typical magnitude.

By Michael A. Riegler, Birk Sebastian Frostelid Torpmann-Hagen
arXiv AI
Sep 10

We Built a Mirror and Mistook It for a Mind: Causal Liability and the Fallacy of AI Consciousness

The paper argues that the current debate on machine consciousness rests on the mistaken assumption that AI systems are already the kind of entities that could possess consciousness. By distinguishing between phenomenal consciousness, introspective report, and human projective introspection, it introduces the AI Consciousness Fallacy, showing that generative models can produce first‑person linguistic traces without being conscious. It then proposes Causal Liability Theory (CLT), with CLT‑I defining liability closure as a criterion for identifying a bearer of consciousness and CLT‑II suggesting that liability closure is both necessary and sufficient for minimal phenomenal subjecthood, and demonstrates experimentally that these distinctions are tractable and can separate causal bearer structure from first‑person performance.

By Afshin Khadangi
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 18

Concept Modulation Models: A Unified Framework for Identifiability and Extrapolation

arXiv:2606. 18509v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Reliable generalization in conditional latent variable models requires understanding both identifiability and extrapolation: how observed variation across attributes determines latent structure, and how that structure determines distributions at unseen attributes.

By Soheun Yi, Yizhou Lu, Chandler Squires, Pradeep Ravikumar