Skip to content
Sprint projectJun 3, 2024

Investigating the Effect of Model Capacity Constraints on Belief State Representations

Ari Brill, Chu Chen · Team Studying Generalization and Abstraction

Submitted to Computational Mechanics Hackathon. Sprint projects are early-stage work by participants, not Apart Research publications.

Read the report

Report: Investigating the Effect of Model Capacity Constraints on Belief State Representations

Code (opens in new tab)
Share

Computational mechanics provides a formal framework for understanding the concepts needed to perform optimal prediction. Abstraction and generalization seem core to the function of intelligent systems, but are not yet well understood. Computational mechanics may present a promising approach to studying these capabilities. As a preliminary exploration, we examine the effect of weight decay on the fractal structure of belief state representations in a transformer’s residual stream. We find that models trained with increasing weight decay coefficients learn increasingly coarse-grained belief state representations.

Reviews

Judging this Sprint?

Review this project

Your public critique appears on this page without your name. Reviews of strong projects are shared with funders, as you choose below.

Not shown on this page.

Shown on this page, without your name.

Only the Apart team reads this, and funders if you agree below.

Decline to score

Only when the quality of the writing makes the work impossible to follow. Say why in your private critique; nothing shows on this page.

Sharing your name *

When we share a strong project with funders, your name, scores and public critique go with it, confidentially; this choice is only about whether your name is public. If you think this project deserves funding, please also endorse it: that carries the most weight.

Share my private critique with funders *

No public critique yet.

Cite this project

@misc{brill2024investigating,
  title = {{Investigating the Effect of Model Capacity Constraints on Belief State Representations}},
  author = {Ari Brill and Chu Chen},
  year = {2024},
  month = jun,
  note = {Submitted to Computational Mechanics Hackathon, an Apart Research Sprint},
  howpublished = {\url{https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/investigating-the-effect-of-model-capacity-constraints-on-belief-state-representations}},
  url = {https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/investigating-the-effect-of-model-capacity-constraints-on-belief-state-representations}
}

Build something like this at the next Sprint

AI Collusion Research Sprint · Oct 23 - 25, 2026