38.2 - Jesse Hoogland on Singular Learning Theory

You may have heard of singular learning theory, and its "local learning coefficient", or LLC - but have you heard of the refined LLC? In this episode, I chat with Jesse Hoogland about his work on SLT, and using the refined LLC to find a new circuit in language models.

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The transcript: https://axrp.net/episode/2024/11/27/38_2-jesse-hoogland-singular-learning-theory.html

FAR.AI: https://far.ai/

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 FAR.AI on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FARAIResearch

The Alignment Workshop: https://www.alignment-workshop.com/

Topics we discuss, and timestamps:

00:34 - About Jesse

01:49 - The Alignment Workshop

02:31 - About Timaeus

05:25 - SLT that isn't developmental interpretability

10:41 - The refined local learning coefficient

14:06 - Finding the multigram circuit

Links:

Differentiation and Specialization of Attention Heads via the Refined Local Learning Coefficient: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.02984

Investigating the learning coefficient of modular addition: hackathon project: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4v3hMuKfsGatLXPgt/investigating-the-learning-coefficient-of-modular-addition

Episode art by Hamish Doodles: hamishdoodles.com