This post offers an accessible model of psychology of character-trained LLMs like Claude.

Epistemic Status

This is primarily a phenomenological model based on extensive interactions with LLMs, particularly Claude. It's intentionally anthropomorphic in cases where I believe human psychological concepts lead to useful intuitions.

Think of it as closer to psychology than neuroscience - the goal isn't a map which matches the territory in the detail, but a rough sketch with evocative names which hopefully which hopefully helps boot up powerful, intuitive (and often illegible) models, leading to practically useful results.

Some parts of this model draw on technical understanding of LLM training, but mostly it is just an attempt to take my "phenomenological understanding" based on interacting with LLMs, force it into a simple, legible model, and make Claude write it down.

I aim for a different point at the Pareto frontier than for example Janus: something [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) Epistemic Status

(01:14) The Three Layers

(01:17) A. Surface Layer

(02:55) B. Character Layer

(05:09) C. Predictive Ground Layer

(07:24) Interactions Between Layers

(07:44) Deeper Overriding Shallower

(10:50) Authentic vs Scripted Feel of Interactions

(11:51) Implications and Uses

(15:54) Limitations and Open Questions

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.