Does the Model Use the Feature? Separating Steering from Mechanism in LLMs

arXiv:2610.07270v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Internal features in LLMs are often interpreted as mechanisms when they track a concept and their manipulation changes a related behavior. Yet steering can push a feature far outside its natural range, where its effects need not reflect the model's own computation. We examine this inference and propose an empirical contract whose tests evaluate features at values observed on natural inputs. One test copies a feature's value from an input that shows a behavior into a matched input that does not (installation) or the reverse (removal); the other re

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