Open Problems in Mechanistic Interpretability · HackerPapers discussions

Open Problems in Mechanistic Interpretability — mentioned by nl

Tue, 20 Oct 2026 23:31:26 GMT

> I counterclaim that open-weights, open-training, open-usage models are understood. Knowing what is in the model is a long way from understanding it. The entire field of mechanistic interpretability exists to try to understand models. Read for example "Open Problems in Mechanistic Interpretability"[1]. To quote: > Developers only need to design the training process; they do not need to – and in almost all cases, do not – understand the neural mechanisms underlying the capabilities learned by an AI system.[1] (emphasis mine) Here's a practical example relevant to this case: Is it possible to…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Open Problems in Mechanistic Interpretability — mentioned by camelmel

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 02:36:01 GMT

LLM written article. It's also not accurate; the fact that language models have human-interpretable representations and neurons has been known since BERT. Circuits research also does not come from Anthropic. Mech interp is a huge field in academia and most of the core circuit analysis papers were from OpenAI/GDM/academia. However, Anthropic tends to produce a lot of blog posts where they draw poorly supported but hype-able analogies between LLMs and biological intelligence. It's wild. For a better understanding of mech interp and circuits, including what we actually do know about LLM…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Open Problems in Mechanistic Interpretability — HN submission

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 03:24:56 GMT

Open Problems in Mechanistic Interpretability

2 points; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

Open Problems in Mechanistic Interpretability — HN submission

Sat, 17 May 2025 04:35:06 GMT

Open Problems in Mechanistic Interpretability

1 point; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

Open Problems in Mechanistic Interpretability — HN submission

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 13:03:17 GMT

Open Problems in Mechanistic Interpretability

2 points; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.