arXiv AI

Key Path Identification for Resolving Knowledge Conflicts via SAE-based Steering

Hugging Face Trending Papers
Jul 27

Sparse Autoencoders Encode Both Concepts and Functions: The Downstream Geometry of Feature Effects

The wide-scale use of sparse autoencoders (SAEs) as interpretability tools is limited by inconsistent links between SAE features and model behavior. Features with clear activation descriptions may have weak or unexpected causal effects; steering can vary across prompts or oppose the intended direction; and activation-based feature selection can miss features that produce the desired output change.

arXiv AI
Oct 31

From Error Prediction to Causal Influence: Auditing SAE Features in Multiple-Choice QA

The paper investigates whether features learned by sparse autoencoders (SAEs) in multiple‑choice question answering actually influence model predictions or merely correlate with errors. Using Gemma 3 1B and 4B models across eight datasets, the authors filter out SAE features that are tied to format or content artifacts and then perform causal interventions on the remaining features. They find that while SAE activations predict wrongness and uncertainty, causal interventions on filtered features shift answer margins more than random features but rarely flip answers, suggesting the features capture context‑dependent competition rather than the root cause of mistakes.

By Aria Nourbakhsh, Adelaide Danilov, Oleksandr Marchenko Breneur, Salima Lamsiyah