arXiv Machine Learning

Adaptive Multi-Value Control in LLMs via Causal Activation Steering

The paper introduces AIMES, a framework for adaptive multi-value activation steering in large language models. AIMES builds layer‑specific bipolar directions for moral‑foundation values and uses intermediate‑layer vocabulary readouts as online observers to guide a controller that adjusts intervention strengths at each decoding step. Experiments across instruction‑tuned model families show that AIMES achieves depth‑dependent advantages over fixed joint steering and prompt‑based steering, with smaller activation‑space interventions and comparable response quality.

arXiv AI
Sep 10

Steering Geometry: Validating Human Value Geometry in LLM Steering Space

arXiv:2609.06289v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: As large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed in alignment-sensitive contexts, activation steering has emerged as a lightweight, inferenc...

By Mohammad Mahdi Abootorabi, Armin Saghafian, Ali Bazshoushtari, Hamid Rezaei, EunJeong Hwang, Vered Shwartz, Parvin Mousavi, Purang Abolmaesumi
arXiv AI
Sep 10

Training-Free Task Vectors for LLM Behavioral Control

The paper introduces Training-Free Task Vectors (TFTVs), a method for computing task-vector-like directions in large language models without fine‑tuning. TFTVs map activation steering vectors to rank‑one weight‑space edits using only forward‑pass statistics, enabling arithmetic operations such as learning, forgetting, and composing edits. Experiments show that TFTVs consistently amplify, suppress, and combine target behaviors while preserving general knowledge, outperforming other editing and steering baselines.

By Gabriel J. Perin, Lucas Boscaini, Andr\'e Araujo, Nina S. T. Hirata
arXiv Computation and Language
3d ago

MetaSteer: Context-Conditioned, nonlinear Steering via Attention-Projection Adaptation

MetaSteer is a new method for steering large language models that learns nonlinear, context-dependent interventions applied to attention projection matrices. Unlike traditional linear, context-independent techniques, MetaSteer adapts its effects based on the input, requiring no linear concept-geometry assumption. Trained once on a pooled preference corpus, it transfers zero‑shot to unseen concepts and out‑of‑distribution contexts, matching or surpassing strong task‑specific baselines on multiple benchmarks and model families.

By Mehdi Jafari, Hao Xue, Flora Salim
arXiv AI
Jul 7

Evolutionary Guided Decoding: Iterative Value Refinement for LLMs

arXiv:2503. 02368v4 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: While guided decoding, especially value-guided methods, has emerged as a cost-effective alternative for controlling language model outputs without re-training models, its effectiveness is limited by the accuracy of the value function.

By Zhenhua Liu, Lijun Li, Ruizhe Chen, Yuxian Jiang, Tong Zhu, Zhaochen Su, Wenliang Chen, Jing Shao