Steering Vector Fields for Context-Aware Inference-Time Control in Large Language Models
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arXiv
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| Autores principales: | , , |
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| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866910008472502272 |
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| author | Li, Jiaqian Li, Yanshu Huang, Kuan-Hao |
| author_facet | Li, Jiaqian Li, Yanshu Huang, Kuan-Hao |
| contents | Steering vectors (SVs) offer a lightweight way to control large language models (LLMs) at inference time by shifting hidden activations, providing a practical middle ground between prompting and fine-tuning. Yet SVs can be unreliable in practice. Some concepts are unsteerable, and even when steering helps on average it can backfire for a non-trivial fraction of inputs. Reliability also degrades in long-form generation and multi-attribute steering. We take a geometric view of these failures. A static SV applies the same update vector everywhere in representation space, implicitly assuming that the concept-improving direction is constant across contexts. When the locally effective direction varies with the current activation, a single global vector can become misaligned, which yields weak or reversed effects. Guided by this perspective, we propose Steering Vector Fields (SVF), which learns a differentiable concept scoring function whose local gradient defines the steering direction at each activation, making interventions explicitly context-dependent. This formulation supports coordinated multi-layer interventions in a shared, aligned concept space, and enables efficient long-form and multi-attribute control within a unified framework. Across multiple LLMs and steering tasks, SVF delivers stronger and more reliable control, improving the practicality of inference-time steering. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_01654 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Steering Vector Fields for Context-Aware Inference-Time Control in Large Language Models Li, Jiaqian Li, Yanshu Huang, Kuan-Hao Computation and Language Steering vectors (SVs) offer a lightweight way to control large language models (LLMs) at inference time by shifting hidden activations, providing a practical middle ground between prompting and fine-tuning. Yet SVs can be unreliable in practice. Some concepts are unsteerable, and even when steering helps on average it can backfire for a non-trivial fraction of inputs. Reliability also degrades in long-form generation and multi-attribute steering. We take a geometric view of these failures. A static SV applies the same update vector everywhere in representation space, implicitly assuming that the concept-improving direction is constant across contexts. When the locally effective direction varies with the current activation, a single global vector can become misaligned, which yields weak or reversed effects. Guided by this perspective, we propose Steering Vector Fields (SVF), which learns a differentiable concept scoring function whose local gradient defines the steering direction at each activation, making interventions explicitly context-dependent. This formulation supports coordinated multi-layer interventions in a shared, aligned concept space, and enables efficient long-form and multi-attribute control within a unified framework. Across multiple LLMs and steering tasks, SVF delivers stronger and more reliable control, improving the practicality of inference-time steering. |
| title | Steering Vector Fields for Context-Aware Inference-Time Control in Large Language Models |
| topic | Computation and Language |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.01654 |