A global workspace in language models

This post details the discovery and properties of the 'J-space,' a collection of internal neural patterns in Claude that function as a global workspace, analogous to conscious access in humans. The J-space enables deliberate reasoning, allows Claude to report on and modulate internal states, and causally mediates performance in multi-step tasks. The post describes experiments demonstrating Claude's ability to report on, modulate, and reason with its J-space, including its use in detecting prompt injections and hidden goals. It also details how editing the J-space directly influences Claude's output, confirming its causal role in reasoning. The research introduces the Jacobian lens (J-lens) as a method for identifying these representations and provides an open-source implementation.