Neel Nanda on the interp debate: neuron attribution graphs are practical, not a reverse-engineering breakthrough

Jsevillamol · x · 2026-10-16

Neel Nanda weighed in on the current interpretability discussion: he endorses exploratory, neuron-based interpretability (e.g. neuron attribution graphs) for pragmatic questions like "why did the model do a sketchy thing?", saying this work plus earlier Transluce research shows the approach works and has advantages over SAEs/transcoders. But he rejects grander inferences that this constitutes major progress toward ambitious reverse engineering or "solving" interpretability.

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