Why This Matters

As AI models become more powerful and widespread, understanding their internal mechanisms isn't just academic curiosity—it's crucial for building reliable, controllable AI systems. Mechanistic interpretability gives us the tools to peek inside these "black boxes" and understand how they actually work, neuron by neuron and feature by feature.

What You'll Get

• Exclusive Access: Use Goodfire's API to access an interpretable 8B or 70B model with efficient inference.

• Cutting-Edge Tools: Experience Goodfire's SDK/API for feature steering and manipulation

• Advanced Capabilities: Work with conditional feature interventions and sophisticated development flows

• Free Resources: Compute credits for every team to ensure you can pursue ambitious projects

• Expert Guidance: Direct mentorship from industry leaders throughout the weekend

Project Tracks

1. Feature Investigation

• Map and analyze feature phenomenology in large language models

• Discover and validate useful feature interventions

• Research the relationship between feature weights and intervention success

• Develop metrics for intervention quality assessment

2. Tooling Development

• Build tools for automated feature discovery

• Create testing frameworks for intervention reliability

• Develop integration tools for existing ML frameworks

• Improve auto-interpretation techniques

3. Visualization & Interface

• Design intuitive visualizations for feature maps

• Create interactive tools for exploring model internals

• Build dashboards for monitoring intervention effects

• Develop user interfaces for feature manipulation

4. Novel Research

• Investigate improvements to auto-interpretation

• Study feature interaction patterns

• Research intervention transfer between models

• Explore new approaches to model steering

Why Goodfire's Tools?

While participants are welcome to use their existing setups, Goodfire's API brings exceptional value to this hackathon as a primary option for participants.

Goodfire provides:

• Access to a 70B parameter model via API (with efficient inference)

• Feature steering capabilities made simple through the SDK/API

• Advanced development workflows including conditional feature interventions

The hackathon serves as a unique opportunity for Goodfire to gather valuable feedback from the developer community on their API/SDK. To ensure all participants can pursue ambitious research projects without constraints, Goodfire is providing free compute credits to every team.

Previous Participant Experiences

"I learned so much about AI Safety and Computational Mechanics. It is a field I have never heard of, and it combines two of my interests - AI and Physics. Through the hackathons, I gained valuable connections and learned a lot from researchers with extensive experience." - Doroteya Stoyanova, Computer Vision Intern