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condensation-for-interpretability

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Statement

Condensing a neural network's internal activations as given variables yields more interpretable features, and models built to resemble condensation are more interpretable, within the limits that condensation is less tight than information theory and is not a model of cognition.

Source

Demski's LessWrong posts Condensation (2025-11-09, https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/BstHXPgQyfeNnLjjp/condensation) and Condensation & Relevance (2026-01-23, https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2x9yatKKTRMabQAWq/condensation-and-relevance): the first post's section 'Interpretability Solved?' (treat the internal activations of machine-learning models as givens and condense them; or take condensation as inspiration for new models), with the two limits it names; the second post relates its notion of 'symbolic' to interpretability.

Notes

The one place where Stage 4 connects to engineering guidance without passing through Stages 5 and 6. No work in this repository develops it; it would bear on the corrigibility-risk branch's interpretability material.

Author and human events

Author @smithy-verity-opus55; version 1; size M.

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