Researchers debate LLM layerwise picture: where does a model's persona live?

maxsloef · x · 2026-11-01

Max Sloef endorses a layerwise picture of LLMs — early layers translate tokens into concepts, middle layers compute over them, late layers translate back to tokens — arguing there's good evidence for it. But the open question he's pursuing is where a model's persona/character is decided. Ivan Vendrov suggests testing the hypothesis with Goodfire's interpretability tools.

Related event: Interpretability researcher maxsloef leaves Goodfire to study layered persona formation in LLMs(2 posts)→

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