Notebook
Findings as we go, newest first. Each entry quotes the model outputs behind its claims.
Given a tool to make their own steering vectors, the models mostly made storytellers
Modulo's create tool lets a model describe a direction and steer with it seconds later. Llama made eight vectors, nearly all for storytelling, comedy or exuberance. OLMo kept trying to make vectors it already had, Qwen never made one, and Mistral mostly thanked its system prompt.
A steered model doesn't notice the steering. It becomes the steered state
We let four models steer themselves, with some sessions secretly applying nothing. Their reports said "it worked" either way. What the steering really changed was whether OLMo kept track of the experiment at all.
The strength dial was miscalibrated, differently on every model
One outlier token inflated the scale 6.4× on Qwen and 1.7× on Llama. Fixed, the same strength numbers hold across four model families.
Steering is a weaker lever than prompting
A system prompt barely moves the model along a vector, yet changes its text more than a large push does. And on a rainy Monday morning, every model goes casual in its own way.
Where models break, and how
Push too far and every model falls apart, but not in the same way. Qwen drifts into word salad; Llama, OLMo and Mistral fall into loops.
The dials aren't independent
Eleven starter vectors, but much of humor, emotion and informality is one shared direction, most of all on Qwen.