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Sprint projectAug 17, 2026Karlsruhe, Germany

What a model says about its state is not what steers it

Frederik Inderst · Team Blind Spot

Submitted to Digital Minds Research Sprint. Sprint projects are early-stage work by participants, not Apart Research publications.

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Report: What a model says about its state is not what steers it

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We injected an emotion into Qwen3-32B, deleted exactly the part the model can put into words, and its choices stayed steered at full strength while its self-reports returned to normal: the model is driven by desperation and tells you it is fine. What a model says about its state is not what steers it. This calls for welfare monitors that read internal state directly; testing an obvious implementation, we find it fails.

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How much would this matter for the field if it worked? How innovative is it? For scores of 4-5: is this actually new to the field, or replicating recent work?

Scoring guide
  1. 1Negligible. No clear problem addressed, or no meaningful novelty.
  2. 2Limited. Addresses a real problem but with a generic or well-trodden approach. Incremental at best.
  3. 3Moderate. Clear problem with a reasonable approach; some novelty in framing or method beyond routine application of existing tools.
  4. 4Significant. Important problem with an original approach, or identifies a neglected problem area. A valuable contribution others could build on.
  5. 5Exceptional. Tackles a critical problem with a genuinely novel approach, or opens a new research direction. Clear theory of change. You'd be excited to share this with researchers in the area.

How sound are methodology, implementation, and findings?

Scoring guide
  1. 1Seriously flawed. Methodology broken, results uninterpretable, or implementation doesn't work.
  2. 2Weak. Approach has significant gaps: missing validation, flawed experimental design, or incomplete implementation.
  3. 3Competent. Technically solid given the short duration. Methodology makes sense, results are interpretable, limitations acknowledged, work builds toward clear conclusions.
  4. 4Strong. Thorough methodology with convincing validation. Results clearly support conclusions. Immediately useful for future work.
  5. 5Exceptional. Ambitious scope executed rigorously. Surprising findings, novel methods, or unusually robust validation.

How clearly are work, findings, and impact potential communicated?

Scoring guide
  1. 1Incomprehensible. Cannot determine what the project is actually claiming or doing.
  2. 2Hard to follow. Key information buried, missing, or diluted by excessive length. Significant effort to extract main points.
  3. 3Clear enough. Can understand the problem, approach, and results without undue effort. Core content clearly present: problem, method, findings, limitations.
  4. 4Well presented. Easy to follow, well-structured, appropriate level of detail. Target audience would get it quickly.
  5. 5Exceptionally clear. A pleasure to read. Complex ideas made accessible. Could serve as a model for how to present this type of work.

  1. Great question and the design actually answers the question. The prose is very well setup - plain language and no jargon

    Appendix A carrying the full 16 cell grid is the right way to go about things and should be flagged in the main text

Cite this project

@misc{inderst2026model,
  title = {{What a model says about its state is not what steers it}},
  author = {Frederik Inderst},
  year = {2026},
  month = aug,
  note = {Submitted to Digital Minds Research Sprint, an Apart Research Sprint},
  howpublished = {\url{https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/what-a-model-says-about-its-state-is-not-what-steers-it-jug2}},
  url = {https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/what-a-model-says-about-its-state-is-not-what-steers-it-jug2}
}

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