Can models understand each other's reasoning? 🤔 When Model A explains its Chain-of-Thought (CoT) , do Models B, C, and D interpret it the same way? Our new preprint with @davidbau.bsky.social and @csinva.bsky.social explores CoT generalizability 🧵👇 (1/7)

Can you solve this algebra puzzle? 🧩 cb=c, ac=b, ab=? A small transformer can learn to solve problems like this! And since the letters don't have inherent meaning, this lets us study how context alone imparts meaning. Here's what we found:🧵⬇️

How can a language model find the veggies in a menu? New pre-print where we investigate the internal mechanisms of LLMs when filtering on a list of options. Spoiler: turns out LLMs use strategies surprisingly similar to functional programming (think "filter" from python)! 🧵

What's the right unit of analysis for understanding LLM internals? We explore in our mech interp survey (a major update from our 2024 ms). We’ve added more recent work and more immediately actionable directions for future work. Now published in Computational Linguistics!

🚨 Registration is live! 🚨 The New England Mechanistic Interpretability (NEMI) Workshop is happening Aug 22nd 2025 at Northeastern University! A chance for the mech interp community to nerd out on how models really work 🧠🤖 🌐 Info: nemiconf.github.io/summer25/ 📝 Register: forms.gle/v4kJCweE3UUH...

[📄] Are LLMs mindless token-shifters, or do they build meaningful representations of language? We study how LLMs copy text in-context, and physically separate out two types of induction heads: token heads, which copy literal tokens, and concept heads, which copy word meanings.

🚀 How would you know what model to use? 🤗 With millions of models emerging rapidly, how do we verify, track, and find the right one? We survey and formalize Model Lakes 🌊🤖 — a framework to structure, navigate, and make sense of this landscape. Website: lakes.baulab.info #AI #Database 🧵1/5

PhD Applicants: remember that the Northeastern Computer Science PhD application deadline is Dec 15. It's a terrific time to do a PhD, with so many interesting things happening in AI. Apply here: www.khoury.northeastern.edu/apply/phd-ap...

More big news! Applications are open for the NDIF Summer Engineering Fellowship—an opportunity to work on cutting-edge AI research infrastructure this summer in Boston! 🚀