构建可复用的语言模型特征参考图谱,实现高效机制审计。
Reference Feature Atlases for Mechanistic Auditing of Language Models

- 用参考面板训练稀疏特征库,新模型仅需线性解码器即可复用。
- 残差通道识别出参考外的新增机制,使目标调控在运行时精准可控。
- 适用于模型机制分析、安全审计,尤其适合对比不同模型行为。
语言模型审计通常需从头学习和解释其内部特征。我们提出参考特征图谱:一个在参考面板上一次性训练的稀疏特征库,可复用于新目标模型,仅通过拟合线性解码器即可接入。该方法提供两种互补视角:图谱通道读取目标模型中已解释的面板特征,提供跨模型稳定的坐标系统;残差通道仅学习图谱无法重构的部分,将“超出参考面板”明确作为审计信号。我们在五个7-9B指令微调模型上训练了留一法图谱,并对保留的Mistral与Qwen目标模型进行审计。在两个目标中注入三个受控的LoRA隐藏目标,残差通道使植入机制在运行时完全可控,而对照组保持不变,并在两个目标中均将植入目标列为最高秩潜在特征;在Mistral上,相比需重新训练的每头基准(per-target SAE与pairwise crosscoder),两者均未能实现此效果。在Qwen-2.5上,该通道还揭示出与面板相关的政治框架聚类,操控该聚类会改变审计后的框架指标,而域外对照组则不受影响。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Auditing a new language model usually means relearning and reinterpreting its internal features from scratch. We propose a reference feature atlas: a sparse feature library trained once on a reference panel and reused for new targets, which attach by fitting only a linear decoder. This yields two complementary views. The atlas channel reads the target on already interpreted panel features, providing a stable coordinate system across models. The residual channel learns features only from what the atlas fails to reconstruct, making "outside the reference panel" an explicit audit signal. We train leave-one-out atlases over five 7-9B instruction-tuned models and audit held-out Mistral and Qwen targets. On three controlled LoRA hidden objectives injected into both targets, the residual channel makes the planted mechanism perfectly controllable at runtime while matched controls stay unaffected and recovers the planted objective as the top-ranked latent across both targets; on Mistral, where the per-target SAE and pairwise crosscoder baselines are retrained for a head-to-head benchmark, both baselines fail to do so. On Qwen-2.5, the same channel additionally reveals a panel-relative political-framing cluster; steering it shifts the audited framing metrics while out-of-domain controls remain unchanged.
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