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Main Authors: Heimersheim, Stefan, Nanda, Neel
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.15255
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author Heimersheim, Stefan
Nanda, Neel
author_facet Heimersheim, Stefan
Nanda, Neel
contents Activation patching is a popular mechanistic interpretability technique, but has many subtleties regarding how it is applied and how one may interpret the results. We provide a summary of advice and best practices, based on our experience using this technique in practice. We include an overview of the different ways to apply activation patching and a discussion on how to interpret the results. We focus on what evidence patching experiments provide about circuits, and on the choice of metric and associated pitfalls.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_15255
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle How to use and interpret activation patching
Heimersheim, Stefan
Nanda, Neel
Machine Learning
Activation patching is a popular mechanistic interpretability technique, but has many subtleties regarding how it is applied and how one may interpret the results. We provide a summary of advice and best practices, based on our experience using this technique in practice. We include an overview of the different ways to apply activation patching and a discussion on how to interpret the results. We focus on what evidence patching experiments provide about circuits, and on the choice of metric and associated pitfalls.
title How to use and interpret activation patching
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.15255