# Efficient Representations are Controllable Representations

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.07828 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.07828/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 6 of its 10 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 8 Feb 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Pointer Sentinel Mixture Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.07843/) (2016)
- [Understanding intermediate layers using linear classifier probes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.01644/) (2016)
- [Interpretability Beyond Feature Attribution: Quantitative Testing with Concept Activation Vectors (TCAV)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.11279/) (2017)
- [Steering Language Models With Activation Engineering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10248/) (2023)
- [Towards Robust Interpretability with Self-Explaining Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.07538/) (2018)
- [Weight-sparse transformers have interpretable circuits](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.13653/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

What is the most brute-force way to install interpretable, controllable features into a model's activations? Controlling how LLMs internally represent concepts typically requires sophisticated methods to first identify, then intervene on the model's existing feature geometry. We bypass all of this. We finetune an LLM with a simple auxiliary loss, training 16 of its 3072 residual stream dimensions to be inert interpretability flags that simply indicate what concepts are required for generation. The model reorganizes around them anyway, learning to rely on these flags during actual generation tasks. As a result, these inert flags become genuine internal features: interpretable control switches that allow us to steer generation at inference time. Why does this work? When a feature is reliably supplied at a fixed location, gradient descent gradually eliminates redundant encodings elsewhere, and the model erodes its own alternative representations. A model's efficiency pressure is a lever - exploitable to induce interpretable, controllable representations.