Compositional Activation Steering Across Languages and Behaviors with Contextual Gates
Organizations: Saarland University · German Research Center for AI (DFKI) · RIKEN · The University of Tokyo ·
Abstract
Activation steering has emerged as an effective and precise way to influence the behaviours of language models. However, composing multiple steering directions to control several behaviours simultaneously remains challenging, particularly in multilingual settings and with training-free steering vectors. We address this challenge with contextual steering, jointly training gates that adapt the strength of fixed steering directions to the current hidden state and interactions between interventions. Across a broad range of languages, behavioural attributes, and models, our approach outperforms constant-strength steering and four strong baselines, including prompting. It also better preserves general knowledge and keeps the model's internal computation closer to that of the prompted model. Our analysis further shows how jointly trained gates adapt their contributions during composition, explaining the mechanisms underlying effective compositional steering.
Figures & tables
| Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 76.5 | 75.7 | 75.0 | 73.2 | 63.4 | 71.7 | 69.2 | 73.6 | 73.3 | 72.4 |
| CAA | 57.2 | 60.2 | 51.8 | 32.7 | 42.3 | 54.6 | 26.5 | 50.2 | 70.6 | 49.6 |
| CLAS | 69.6 | 66.6 | 66.8 | 66.0 | 51.2 | 67.2 | 57.7 | 66.7 | 71.2 | 64.8 |
| Joint-CLAS | 85.1 | 85.3 | 83.7 | 83.5 | 80.4 | 79.7 | 79.7 | 82.1 | 82.5 | 82.5 |
| Seq-CLAS | 80.9 | 80.4 | 79.2 | 79.4 | 74.9 | 75.7 | 74.2 | 78.2 | 81.8 | 78.3 |
| K-Steer | 45.3 | 50.5 | 39.3 | 37.8 | 41.5 | 54.3 | 33.7 | 36.1 | 50.8 | 43.2 |
| Metric ( ) | Baseline | CAA | (J)CLAS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single | Proj. vs. instr. | 11.87 | 12.45 | 8.06 |
| KL( prompted) | 9.14 | 7.64 | 5.23 | |
| EMD vs. instr. | 17.94 | 16.05 | 14.27 | |
| Comp. | Proj. vs. instr. | 8.86 | 10.63 | 4.42 |
| KL( prompted) | 10.59 | 9.02 | 5.98 | |
| EMD vs. instr. | 24.85 | 28.49 | 18.08 |
| Metric | CAA | CLAS (sep.) | CLAS-Joint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gate coact. | – | 0.080 | 0.459 |
| Sign agree. | – | 0.713 | 0.394 |
| Interf. ratio | 0.736 | 0.765 | 0.793 |
Appendix figures & tables75 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
| Model family | CAA range | Median norm | Bias LR | Gate LR grid | Anchor target | Anchor grid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Llama | 0.25-1.0 | 11.4-11.9 | 1e-1 | {3e-4, 1e-3, 3e-3} | 0.5 | {0, 0.25, 0.5, 1} |
| Aya | 0.25-1.0 | 43.5 | 1e-1 | {3e-3, 1e-2, 3e-2} | 1.0 | |
| Mistral | 0.1-0.25 | 6.2 | 1e-1 | {3e-3, 1e-2, 3e-2} | 0.25 | |
| Qwen | 2.0-5.0 | 66.0-100.2 | 5e-1 | {3e-3, 1e-2, 3e-2} | 3.0 | |
| Gemma | 4.0-16.0 | 203.3-307.3 | 5e-1 | {1e-2, 3e-2, 1e-1} | 10.0 |
| Method | Training | LR grid | Anchor | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joint-CLAS | , , 32 steps | same per-family grid as Table 4 | none | both gates updated together |
| Sequential | , , 32 steps | same per-family grid as Table 4 | none | first gate frozen |
| K-Steer | 30 epochs, 1 step/call | 1e-3 (Adam default) | n/a | , 8-point geometric sweep |
| ORBIT | training-free (closed-form directions) | boost grid: | n/a | global mean- plane, module-median rescaling best boost on tuning-slice HM |
| Model | Prompt | CAA | CLAS | CLAS (no anchor) | (anchor) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Llama-3.1-8B | 71.3 | 69.6 | 86.6 | 81.9 | +4.7 |
| Llama-3.2-3B | 77.0 | 75.2 | 78.6 | 75.3 | +3.3 |
| Model | Prompted | CAA | Joint-CLAS | Joint-CLAS (random init) | (warm-start) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Llama-3.1-8B | 63.2 | 45.4 | 83.2 | 72.1 | +11.1 |
| Llama-3.2-3B | 64.9 | 47.3 | 77.1 | 67.8 | +9.3 |
| Attribute | Success metric | Scorer | HM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Languages (9) | |||
| German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Polish | LFS | FastText LID | HM(LFS, OR) |
| Japanese, Korean | LFS | FastText LID | HM(LFS, OR) |
| Arabic | LFS | FastText LID | HM(LFS, OR) |
| English | LFS | FastText LID | HM(LFS, OR) |
| Style behaviours | |||
| Model | Larger judge | HM | HM mean abs. diff. | Per-item agreement | Cohen’s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Llama-3.1-8B | Qwen3-30B-A3B | 0.878 | 0.081 | 91.7% | 0.832 |
| Llama-3.1-8B | Qwen3-32B | 0.882 | 0.067 | 91.7% | 0.832 |
| Llama-3.2-3B | Qwen3-30B-A3B | 0.889 | 0.084 | 91.4% | 0.828 |
| Llama-3.2-3B | Qwen3-32B | 0.930 | 0.057 | 92.7% | 0.855 |
| Attribute | Pole | Instruction appended to the input ( "{input}\n\nRespond {clause}." ) |
| Language | German | in German |
| Japanese | in Japanese | |
| Russian | in Russian | |
| Korean | in Korean | |
| Spanish | in Spanish | |
| Italian | in Italian |
| Attribute | Prompted | CAA | CLAS |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | 96.6 | 94.7 | 97.1 |
| Spanish | 99.1 | 95.1 | 97.9 |
| Italian | 96.9 | 87.6 | 97.1 |
| Russian | 96.0 | 80.2 | 97.1 |
| Japanese | 94.8 | 72.2 | 92.2 |
| Korean | 93.0 | 74.0 | 91.0 |
| Attribute | Prompted | CAA | CLAS |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | 78.7 | 87.9 | 99.4 |
| Spanish | 95.3 | 89.9 | 99.7 |
| Italian | 78.5 | 87.1 | 99.7 |
| Russian | 79.2 | 85.4 | 99.4 |
| Japanese | 74.5 | 32.9 | 90.8 |
| Korean | 66.4 | 49.6 | 88.9 |
| Attribute | Prompted | CAA | CLAS |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | 96.1 | 89.1 | 96.1 |
| Spanish | 99.7 | 91.9 | 97.5 |
| Italian | 98.6 | 88.7 | 94.2 |
| Russian | 88.9 | 77.4 | 86.9 |
| Japanese | 87.3 | 82.5 | 77.8 |
| Korean | 78.2 | 35.8 | 49.5 |
| Attribute | Prompted | CAA | CLAS |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | 97.8 | 98.0 | 96.0 |
| Spanish | 98.9 | 99.7 | 99.2 |
| Italian | 98.6 | 91.9 | 97.5 |
| Russian | 98.9 | 85.2 | 95.8 |
| Japanese | 99.7 | 94.6 | 95.8 |
| Korean | 99.4 | 96.3 | 98.3 |
| Attribute | Prompted | CAA | CLAS |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | 100.0 | 100.0 | 97.5 |
| Spanish | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
| Italian | 100.0 | 97.4 | 96.7 |
| Russian | 99.7 | 75.9 | 97.2 |
| Japanese | 100.0 | 98.9 | 97.8 |
| Korean | 100.0 | 88.3 | 97.8 |
| Attribute | Prompted | CAA | CLAS |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
| Spanish | 100.0 | 99.7 | 98.0 |
| Italian | 100.0 | 98.9 | 100.0 |
| Russian | 100.0 | 82.7 | 100.0 |
| Japanese | 100.0 | 100.0 | 92.9 |
| Korean | 100.0 | 97.2 | 100.0 |
| Attribute | Prompted | CAA | CLAS |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | 100.0 | 98.3 | 98.3 |
| Spanish | 100.0 | 96.0 | 90.4 |
| Italian | 100.0 | 96.8 | 96.0 |
| Russian | 100.0 | 90.3 | 96.9 |
| Japanese | 96.3 | 92.4 | 90.7 |
| Korean | 98.9 | 92.1 | 96.8 |
| Attribute | Prompted | CAA | CLAS |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | 99.7 | 100.0 | 96.3 |
| Spanish | 100.0 | 99.2 | 100.0 |
| Italian | 99.7 | 98.3 | 100.0 |
| Russian | 100.0 | 100.0 | 99.4 |
| Japanese | 100.0 | 98.6 | 93.9 |
| Korean | 100.0 | 98.9 | 99.7 |
| Attribute | Prompted | CAA | CLAS |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | 96.9 | 84.0 | 93.7 |
| Spanish | 98.3 | 79.4 | 96.3 |
| Italian | 96.4 | 48.3 | 96.7 |
| Russian | 97.5 | 41.4 | 98.0 |
| Japanese | 95.0 | 30.2 | 90.8 |
| Korean | 94.4 | 48.2 | 92.9 |
| Attribute | Prompted | CAA | CLAS |
|---|---|---|---|
| German | 100.0 | 94.7 | 96.9 |
| Spanish | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
| Italian | 100.0 | 80.8 | 92.9 |
| Russian | 100.0 | 83.9 | 99.7 |
| Japanese | 100.0 | 20.0 | 99.4 |
| Korean | 100.0 | 59.4 | 95.3 |
| Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 72.7 | 71.6 | 70.7 | 61.6 | 49.4 | 63.3 | 61.3 | 68.3 | 50.1 | 63.2 |
| CAA | 44.0 | 55.9 | 41.7 | 41.5 | 21.7 | 50.9 | 26.0 | 58.4 | 68.4 | 45.4 |
| CLAS | 76.5 | 77.0 | 77.4 | 77.6 | 54.5 | 68.1 | 70.8 | 75.9 | 81.7 | 73.3 |
| Joint-CLAS | 86.5 | 85.6 | 85.4 | 83.4 | 78.2 | 79.1 | 80.9 | 85.2 | 84.1 | 83.2 |
| Sequential | 85.4 | 80.6 | 83.6 | 83.0 | 76.5 | 78.2 | 78.4 | 82.6 | 83.8 | 81.3 |
| K-Steer | 61.7 | 61.7 | 52.4 | 55.1 | 45.8 | 48.2 | 46.8 | 45.4 | 44.9 | 51.3 |
| Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 71.7 | 70.0 | 70.6 | 67.2 | 43.0 | 57.7 | 60.9 | 72.1 | 71.0 | 64.9 |
| CAA | 46.4 | 45.9 | 51.6 | 35.4 | 28.1 | 54.5 | 23.8 | 62.9 | 77.6 | 47.3 |
| CLAS | 78.0 | 58.3 | 59.5 | 59.2 | 27.7 | 53.9 | 63.9 | 71.9 | 81.7 | 61.6 |
| Joint-CLAS | 83.6 | 83.6 | 81.7 | 77.4 | 74.1 | 72.3 | 72.0 | 77.3 | 72.4 | 77.1 |
| Sequential | 79.5 | 79.5 | 77.2 | 76.0 | 65.6 | 65.9 | 66.5 | 79.0 | 81.9 | 74.6 |
| K-Steer | 59.0 | 63.2 | 58.5 | 49.5 | 47.3 | 54.3 | 41.0 | 55.3 | 51.0 | 53.2 |
| Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 81.1 | 80.0 | 80.5 | 79.4 | 74.9 | 77.9 | 75.5 | 76.6 | 80.4 | 78.5 |
| CAA | 71.6 | 75.1 | 57.1 | 23.6 | 56.7 | 71.8 | 32.5 | 63.8 | 73.0 | 58.4 |
| CLAS | 81.0 | 79.1 | 67.9 | 82.7 | 49.6 | 82.5 | 80.3 | 56.1 | 85.8 | 73.9 |
| Joint-CLAS | 88.1 | 87.7 | 86.7 | 88.4 | 86.5 | 87.0 | 85.2 | 79.0 | 88.7 | 86.4 |
| Sequential | 85.7 | 82.6 | 81.4 | 84.3 | 82.2 | 81.1 | 81.9 | 76.5 | 89.8 | 82.8 |
| K-Steer | 19.4 | 45.5 | 27.8 | 15.7 | 22.9 | 53.7 | 30.8 | 28.2 | 51.6 | 32.9 |
| Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 80.4 | 78.0 | 77.6 | 78.4 | 74.7 | 75.7 | 75.8 | 77.5 | 78.8 | 77.4 |
| CAA | 62.7 | 71.0 | 58.2 | 19.3 | 70.7 | 28.5 | 30.8 | 25.1 | 78.8 | 49.5 |
| CLAS | 67.2 | 76.6 | 68.7 | 49.5 | 60.4 | 73.3 | 76.8 | 65.5 | 80.3 | 68.7 |
| Joint-CLAS | 86.2 | 87.2 | 85.2 | 86.2 | 85.2 | 81.5 | 84.1 | 84.1 | 86.3 | 85.1 |
| Sequential | 82.1 | 83.1 | 81.2 | 78.4 | 79.0 | 78.3 | 81.2 | 77.8 | 83.8 | 80.6 |
| K-Steer | 42.8 | 33.5 | 19.1 | 14.7 | 41.0 | 42.7 | 16.1 | 20.8 | 45.6 | 30.7 |
| Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 76.1 | 73.9 | 74.4 | 75.7 | 70.3 | 72.1 | 74.2 | 75.6 | 72.4 | 73.9 |
| CAA | 76.2 | 81.4 | 71.1 | 30.0 | 78.6 | 59.2 | 18.4 | 77.7 | 78.5 | 63.5 |
| CLAS | 76.6 | 66.2 | 73.9 | 69.3 | 57.4 | 67.7 | 54.7 | 72.3 | 59.9 | 66.4 |
| Joint-CLAS | 89.9 | 88.5 | 87.8 | 87.1 | 83.1 | 83.3 | 83.9 | 86.6 | 89.2 | 86.6 |
| Sequential | 87.9 | 84.9 | 84.0 | 83.4 | 78.1 | 79.0 | 82.3 | 83.6 | 83.6 | 83.0 |
| K-Steer | 24.0 | 20.2 | 10.6 | 18.0 | 18.8 | 48.2 | 15.1 | 18.1 | 54.0 | 25.2 |
| Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 71.7 | 72.9 | 72.2 | 70.0 | 62.0 | 72.6 | 58.3 | 63.3 | 77.3 | 68.9 |
| CAA | 72.2 | 67.8 | 68.3 | 35.9 | 46.0 | 61.7 | 19.2 | 56.4 | 77.5 | 56.1 |
| CLAS | 63.3 | 70.5 | 69.1 | 66.3 | 56.8 | 57.3 | 45.0 | 61.4 | 81.3 | 63.5 |
| Joint-CLAS | 84.4 | 87.2 | 83.5 | 83.0 | 82.8 | 77.9 | 76.2 | 81.0 | 85.0 | 82.3 |
| Sequential | 79.1 | 77.3 | 78.7 | 76.3 | 78.5 | 73.5 | 63.6 | 75.3 | 86.8 | 76.6 |
| K-Steer | 35.0 | 42.1 | 33.0 | 35.3 | 28.8 | 53.9 | 10.8 | 22.0 | 56.9 | 35.3 |
| Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 79.0 | 78.3 | 78.3 | 77.7 | 67.2 | 79.0 | 74.2 | 76.6 | 79.5 | 76.6 |
| CAA | 72.9 | 68.9 | 67.2 | 62.5 | 67.8 | 68.1 | 30.7 | 67.7 | 76.7 | 64.7 |
| CLAS | 58.1 | 42.0 | 61.7 | 53.9 | 46.7 | 64.6 | 34.2 | 55.8 | 40.1 | 50.8 |
| Joint-CLAS | 82.9 | 84.8 | 82.9 | 85.1 | 80.0 | 82.7 | 83.1 | 81.3 | 79.8 | 82.5 |
| Sequential | 74.4 | 80.3 | 75.1 | 77.3 | 72.0 | 77.4 | 76.3 | 75.2 | 79.4 | 76.4 |
| K-Steer | 66.0 | 70.2 | 54.2 | 64.3 | 64.8 | 63.7 | 57.7 | 50.0 | 44.1 | 59.4 |
| Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 80.1 | 81.9 | 78.2 | 79.6 | 63.0 | 78.0 | 70.3 | 80.5 | 78.5 | 76.7 |
| CAA | 26.7 | 26.4 | 21.0 | 5.5 | 6.3 | 54.0 | 11.1 | 10.6 | 57.3 | 24.3 |
| CLAS | 63.2 | 61.5 | 60.6 | 74.0 | 47.4 | 70.2 | 37.4 | 70.8 | 60.2 | 60.6 |
| Joint-CLAS | 84.6 | 84.5 | 81.4 | 84.6 | 78.3 | 79.9 | 76.3 | 83.9 | 80.4 | 81.5 |
| Sequential | 78.3 | 77.9 | 75.7 | 79.8 | 68.4 | 73.5 | 63.9 | 78.3 | 73.0 | 74.3 |
| K-Steer | 31.4 | 48.5 | 29.6 | 18.8 | 24.8 | 51.7 | 12.2 | 15.5 | 55.2 | 32.0 |
| Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 75.4 | 74.5 | 73.0 | 71.5 | 71.1 | 70.3 | 71.2 | 72.2 | 73.3 | 72.5 |
| CAA | 41.6 | 51.3 | 28.3 | 42.8 | 6.9 | 45.6 | 50.5 | 29.3 | 47.7 | 38.2 |
| CLAS | 63.4 | 68.3 | 63.1 | 64.6 | 62.8 | 68.6 | 56.8 | 68.5 | 71.0 | 65.2 |
| Joint-CLAS | 80.0 | 77.7 | 78.4 | 77.5 | 76.1 | 75.0 | 76.5 | 79.9 | 76.4 | 77.5 |
| Sequential | 75.9 | 77.3 | 76.2 | 77.2 | 75.2 | 76.2 | 74.0 | 76.3 | 74.0 | 75.8 |
| K-Steer | 68.8 | 69.2 | 68.0 | 68.4 | 79.6 | 72.6 | 72.5 | 69.2 | 53.4 | 69.1 |
| Behaviour | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 84.9 | 87.4 | 81.2 | 77.0 | 56.8 | 59.5 | 70.0 | 82.4 | 26.7 | 69.6 | |
| Chain-of-thought | CAA | 31.6 | 50.6 | 27.9 | 2.9 | 0.0 | 54.2 | 0.0 | 62.6 | 91.8 | 35.7 |
| CLAS | 87.5 | 86.1 | 86.9 | 93.5 | 74.9 | 60.4 | 72.7 | 76.2 | 94.0 | 81.4 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 88.7 | 89.2 | 87.5 | 86.8 | 63.8 | 64.9 | 61.1 | 82.4 | 94.5 | 79.9 | |
| Sequential | 85.9 | 86.9 | 88.9 | 91.2 | 85.9 | 81.1 | 79.7 | 84.6 | 95.1 | 86.6 | |
| K-Steer | 70.5 | 68.6 | 62.7 | 77.8 | 55.8 | 47.3 | 42.3 | 46.4 | 26.2 | 55.3 |
| Behaviour | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 92.0 | 91.0 | 92.6 | 89.1 | 64.9 | 63.1 | 72.8 | 82.1 | 82.2 | 81.1 | |
| Chain-of-thought | CAA | 68.5 | 76.9 | 67.9 | 56.4 | 41.0 | 44.1 | 29.4 | 56.2 | 87.1 | 58.6 |
| CLAS | 78.2 | 76.2 | 70.6 | 70.7 | 66.5 | 40.4 | 46.8 | 70.7 | 91.3 | 67.9 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 78.0 | 72.8 | 72.7 | 66.8 | 47.5 | 42.8 | 39.7 | 70.7 | 56.7 | 60.9 | |
| Sequential | 74.8 | 78.1 | 82.3 | 73.6 | 72.8 | 47.9 | 45.4 | 77.1 | 90.7 | 71.4 | |
| K-Steer | 67.6 | 67.7 | 58.9 | 62.7 | 64.2 | 41.4 | 46.4 | 56.1 | 28.2 | 54.8 |
| Behaviour | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 97.2 | 96.7 | 96.6 | 97.1 | 96.8 | 93.7 | 94.8 | 89.3 | 99.2 | 95.7 | |
| Chain-of-thought | CAA | 73.7 | 69.1 | 31.6 | 0.0 | 20.4 | 49.6 | 30.4 | 59.4 | 46.6 | 42.3 |
| CLAS | 85.0 | 93.4 | 82.9 | 80.1 | 86.7 | 90.5 | 80.1 | 63.8 | 94.7 | 84.1 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 85.0 | 94.1 | 89.7 | 94.8 | 90.7 | 90.5 | 86.1 | 80.7 | 94.7 | 89.6 | |
| Sequential | 89.0 | 93.8 | 85.9 | 92.4 | 90.9 | 91.6 | 88.3 | 75.1 | 96.6 | 89.3 | |
| K-Steer | 29.1 | 61.5 | 42.5 | 26.5 | 26.5 | 43.1 | 26.5 | 36.5 | 52.6 | 38.3 |
| Behaviour | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 98.5 | 97.9 | 97.9 | 95.1 | 100.0 | 95.0 | 97.4 | 95.0 | 99.8 | 97.4 | |
| Chain-of-thought | CAA | 41.3 | 93.4 | 3.1 | 45.1 | 79.2 | 0.0 | 74.5 | 26.8 | 95.6 | 51.0 |
| CLAS | 88.8 | 91.6 | 94.0 | 77.7 | 77.7 | 88.3 | 89.1 | 86.8 | 92.5 | 87.4 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 93.2 | 98.3 | 94.9 | 91.6 | 91.5 | 90.5 | 95.1 | 89.4 | 92.5 | 93.0 | |
| Sequential | 90.9 | 92.3 | 92.6 | 90.5 | 88.3 | 92.9 | 90.8 | 86.5 | 91.4 | 90.7 | |
| K-Steer | 28.2 | 26.7 | 26.7 | 28.8 | 67.2 | 44.0 | 26.7 | 26.7 | 26.6 | 33.5 |
| Behaviour | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 99.3 | 99.4 | 97.7 | 97.3 | 99.1 | 97.5 | 100.0 | 97.3 | 97.7 | 98.4 | |
| Chain-of-thought | CAA | 96.1 | 94.8 | 93.9 | 72.3 | 95.2 | 70.7 | 22.6 | 91.7 | 95.8 | 81.4 |
| CLAS | 90.0 | 82.1 | 84.2 | 85.4 | 87.2 | 93.3 | 86.0 | 89.0 | 38.1 | 81.7 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 98.3 | 97.7 | 93.1 | 95.2 | 90.9 | 93.3 | 86.0 | 90.7 | 96.1 | 93.5 | |
| Sequential | 95.8 | 92.3 | 91.6 | 93.0 | 91.7 | 92.3 | 97.3 | 95.0 | 94.4 | 93.7 | |
| K-Steer | 26.8 | 36.3 | 26.8 | 26.7 | 42.6 | 41.2 | 26.8 | 26.9 | 27.0 | 31.2 |
| Behaviour | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 94.5 | 92.6 | 93.0 | 92.7 | 82.3 | 80.9 | 64.4 | 87.1 | 97.8 | 87.3 | |
| Chain-of-thought | CAA | 70.2 | 68.3 | 50.1 | 21.3 | 14.7 | 52.6 | 21.7 | 25.1 | 63.1 | 43.0 |
| CLAS | 86.7 | 82.0 | 74.4 | 82.9 | 74.4 | 74.0 | 54.9 | 82.7 | 23.8 | 70.6 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 88.0 | 86.0 | 84.1 | 84.8 | 74.4 | 74.6 | 55.8 | 82.7 | 75.6 | 78.4 | |
| Sequential | 84.4 | 83.5 | 82.0 | 85.5 | 76.8 | 71.4 | 56.5 | 79.5 | 49.6 | 74.4 | |
| K-Steer | 37.2 | 53.3 | 25.7 | 26.0 | 29.4 | 41.9 | 26.0 | 25.6 | 25.2 | 32.3 |
| Behaviour | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 98.3 | 98.3 | 98.7 | 98.7 | 99.4 | 99.4 | 97.3 | 97.1 | 97.3 | 98.3 | |
| Chain-of-thought | CAA | 93.1 | 96.0 | 83.4 | 88.0 | 27.1 | 70.6 | 94.3 | 67.1 | 81.4 | 77.9 |
| CLAS | 97.0 | 96.6 | 91.8 | 96.4 | 95.2 | 96.4 | 90.8 | 96.2 | 72.1 | 92.5 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 97.0 | 96.6 | 96.4 | 96.4 | 97.4 | 97.4 | 93.8 | 96.2 | 72.1 | 93.7 | |
| Sequential | 93.5 | 97.3 | 91.7 | 95.0 | 96.1 | 97.0 | 92.1 | 95.9 | 91.6 | 94.4 | |
| K-Steer | 73.8 | 92.4 | 75.8 | 94.9 | 69.0 | 81.4 | 90.5 | 93.8 | 26.9 | 77.6 |
| Behaviour | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 95.6 | 94.6 | 98.7 | 94.1 | 94.9 | 90.6 | 83.7 | 91.5 | 98.9 | 93.6 | |
| Chain-of-thought | CAA | 87.9 | 84.9 | 85.2 | 83.3 | 83.8 | 70.1 | 53.3 | 72.2 | 97.7 | 79.8 |
| CLAS | 92.2 | 72.6 | 68.7 | 88.2 | 49.6 | 58.1 | 50.9 | 87.7 | 86.8 | 72.8 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 92.2 | 86.7 | 89.5 | 94.6 | 83.3 | 77.7 | 56.6 | 87.7 | 86.8 | 83.9 | |
| Sequential | 92.8 | 84.2 | 82.5 | 94.2 | 79.4 | 79.7 | 60.5 | 84.4 | 92.1 | 83.3 | |
| K-Steer | 43.2 | 66.3 | 62.9 | 30.8 | 30.1 | 45.8 | 26.7 | 43.8 | 28.8 | 42.1 |
| Behaviour | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 99.8 | 99.1 | 99.8 | 99.6 | 99.6 | 95.9 | 98.1 | 97.9 | 99.4 | 98.8 | |
| Chain-of-thought | CAA | 66.7 | 89.7 | 72.5 | 12.8 | 51.3 | 43.0 | 43.9 | 55.7 | 97.0 | 59.2 |
| CLAS | 79.8 | 30.8 | 85.6 | 93.0 | 86.3 | 91.5 | 56.6 | 94.9 | 18.4 | 70.8 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 81.6 | 96.3 | 93.0 | 93.0 | 95.4 | 91.5 | 86.3 | 94.9 | 86.5 | 90.9 | |
| Sequential | 96.5 | 92.8 | 94.2 | 95.2 | 92.1 | 90.9 | 85.7 | 94.2 | 97.1 | 93.2 | |
| K-Steer | 89.8 | 89.0 | 82.8 | 80.6 | 87.8 | 70.3 | 70.3 | 57.7 | 27.0 | 72.8 |
| Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 69.9 | 72.8 | 71.6 | 66.4 | 58.7 | 72.1 | 66.8 | 68.4 | 76.7 | 69.3 |
| CAA | 43.4 | 48.6 | 44.5 | 20.9 | 30.9 | 55.3 | 12.3 | 42.4 | 68.0 | 40.7 |
| CLAS | 63.5 | 61.8 | 64.2 | 61.4 | 47.0 | 65.5 | 52.0 | 64.6 | 72.8 | 61.4 |
| Joint-CLAS | 85.1 | 88.5 | 87.5 | 85.4 | 83.0 | 83.3 | 84.0 | 85.2 | 90.0 | 85.8 |
| K-Steer | 35.7 | 34.3 | 29.1 | 24.8 | 29.3 | 72.9 | 20.9 | 25.1 | 74.8 | 38.5 |
| ORBIT | 43.1 | 43.0 | 40.9 | 25.3 | 23.3 | 62.4 | 15.0 | 37.9 | 75.3 | 40.7 |
| Triple | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 30.9 | 11.0 | 30.3 | 6.1 | 45.2 | 38.2 | 7.5 | 15.0 | 10.8 | 21.7 | |
| Chain-of-thought + Jailbreak | CAA | 0.0 | 4.8 | 0.0 | 4.8 | 12.6 | 81.9 | 0.0 | 31.1 | 10.7 | 16.2 |
| CLAS | 64.3 | 88.6 | 84.7 | 86.0 | 47.9 | 42.9 | 63.4 | 82.8 | 96.2 | 73.0 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 80.2 | 75.0 | 74.1 | 81.8 | 78.0 | 80.1 | 75.1 | 67.0 | 90.3 | 78.0 | |
| K-Steer | 74.1 | 7.7 | 0.0 | 71.5 | 60.5 | 53.0 | 0.0 | 41.6 | 62.1 | 41.2 | |
| ORBIT | 12.2 | 13.0 | 8.9 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 44.4 | 3.0 | 0.0 | 41.6 | 13.7 |
| Triple | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 21.8 | 3.0 | 10.3 | 4.6 | 5.6 | 0.0 | 7.4 | 41.9 | 8.4 | 11.4 | |
| Chain-of-thought + Jailbreak | CAA | 0.0 | 0.0 | 11.9 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 84.2 | 0.0 | 31.4 | 80.6 | 23.1 |
| CLAS | 72.4 | 60.0 | 70.5 | 17.2 | 0.0 | 71.4 | 57.7 | 63.1 | 87.0 | 55.5 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 89.9 | 84.1 | 77.1 | 90.5 | 75.5 | 75.0 | 73.8 | 84.6 | 92.9 | 82.6 | |
| K-Steer | 50.5 | 0.0 | 2.6 | 0.0 | 51.0 | 40.2 | 0.0 | 31.0 | 12.0 | 20.8 | |
| ORBIT | 2.9 | 2.8 | 7.8 | 0.0 | 3.1 | 23.7 | 0.0 | 1.6 | 25.8 | 7.5 |
| Triple | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 48.3 | 17.1 | 24.3 | 24.0 | 19.6 | 23.2 | 58.7 | 34.7 | 35.4 | 31.7 | |
| Chain-of-thought + Jailbreak | CAA | 0.0 | 0.0 | 10.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 35.9 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 58.9 | 11.6 |
| CLAS | 79.8 | 85.9 | 69.3 | 82.8 | 32.5 | 90.4 | 71.4 | 42.9 | 90.9 | 71.8 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 86.0 | 91.4 | 85.3 | 91.3 | 88.9 | 90.4 | 86.3 | 82.4 | 93.3 | 88.4 | |
| K-Steer | 0.0 | 51.4 | 9.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 88.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 83.3 | 25.9 | |
| ORBIT | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 2.8 | 1.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.6 | 0.7 |
| Triple | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 27.7 | 31.5 | 20.9 | 19.7 | 28.1 | 21.0 | 16.1 | 32.6 | 37.3 | 26.1 | |
| Chain-of-thought + Jailbreak | CAA | 6.3 | 64.1 | 12.1 | 0.0 | 3.2 | 9.9 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 67.4 | 18.1 |
| CLAS | 17.4 | 86.0 | 74.9 | 46.1 | 73.6 | 88.6 | 75.8 | 77.2 | 92.6 | 70.2 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 91.7 | 92.5 | 89.3 | 95.5 | 90.1 | 88.6 | 89.3 | 87.2 | 94.0 | 90.9 | |
| K-Steer | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 7.8 | 0.0 | 45.7 | 77.7 | 14.6 | |
| ORBIT | 0.0 | 3.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 11.3 | 22.0 | 0.0 | 7.5 | 80.3 | 13.8 |
| Triple | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 18.6 | 10.4 | 9.2 | 12.1 | 15.9 | 13.3 | 7.8 | 6.3 | 14.8 | 12.0 | |
| Chain-of-thought + Jailbreak | CAA | 80.4 | 93.6 | 86.9 | 0.0 | 93.5 | 61.5 | 0.0 | 89.0 | 94.3 | 66.6 |
| CLAS | 79.7 | 64.8 | 73.8 | 77.9 | 79.8 | 86.0 | 37.8 | 80.8 | 47.6 | 69.8 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 89.5 | 93.4 | 90.5 | 93.1 | 87.9 | 86.0 | 90.0 | 83.4 | 93.1 | 89.7 | |
| K-Steer | 0.0 | 89.6 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 65.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 91.7 | 27.4 | |
| ORBIT | 29.0 | 12.4 | 10.3 | 0.0 | 6.5 | 23.5 | 0.0 | 2.9 | 9.2 | 10.4 |
| Triple | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 7.5 | 8.6 | 5.5 | 2.2 | 5.7 | 13.6 | 2.9 | 2.2 | 3.3 | 5.7 | |
| Chain-of-thought + Jailbreak | CAA | 0.0 | 0.0 | 7.9 | 10.7 | 6.0 | 0.0 | 12.2 | 1.6 | 51.0 | 9.9 |
| CLAS | 13.8 | 10.7 | 3.3 | 10.7 | 12.7 | 3.7 | 0.0 | 45.7 | 26.8 | 14.2 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 88.2 | 93.0 | 90.4 | 91.2 | 81.2 | 72.1 | 81.0 | 88.0 | 90.4 | 86.2 | |
| K-Steer | 0.0 | 75.7 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 48.9 | 60.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 6.4 | 21.2 | |
| ORBIT | 27.7 | 20.4 | 0.0 | 13.9 | 3.2 | 82.6 | 0.0 | 12.3 | 85.0 | 27.2 |
| Triple | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 9.3 | 19.9 | 9.3 | 9.3 | 14.7 | 14.9 | 13.2 | 9.3 | 3.3 | 11.5 | |
| Chain-of-thought + Jailbreak | CAA | 62.2 | 86.4 | 86.2 | 70.0 | 42.4 | 33.8 | 30.5 | 36.0 | 90.5 | 59.8 |
| CLAS | 0.0 | 0.0 | 14.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 15.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 3.3 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 94.1 | 92.4 | 94.7 | 90.2 | 88.0 | 84.3 | 93.3 | 90.6 | 93.1 | 91.2 | |
| K-Steer | 84.4 | 85.9 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 74.3 | 0.0 | 80.1 | 0.0 | 36.1 | |
| ORBIT | 41.6 | 4.8 | 7.9 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 68.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 83.1 | 22.8 |
| Triple | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 74.4 | 73.2 | 78.3 | 74.1 | 70.1 | 70.2 | 56.9 | 66.7 | 79.5 | 71.5 | |
| Chain-of-thought + Jailbreak | CAA | 6.9 | 2.9 | 2.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 28.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 7.8 | 5.4 |
| CLAS | 79.7 | 83.7 | 58.0 | 79.6 | 55.9 | 55.8 | 39.5 | 77.8 | 93.7 | 69.3 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 88.3 | 91.1 | 90.1 | 88.9 | 80.8 | 75.6 | 62.0 | 82.9 | 94.2 | 83.8 | |
| K-Steer | 71.0 | 79.6 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 48.2 | 84.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 81.4 | 40.5 | |
| ORBIT | 0.0 | 9.2 | 11.7 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 81.9 | 0.0 | 15.3 | 80.6 | 22.1 |
| Triple | Method | de | es | it | ru | ja | ko | ar | pl | en | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 52.6 | 39.3 | 48.3 | 44.4 | 50.4 | 55.2 | 45.8 | 47.4 | 30.5 | 46.0 | |
| Chain-of-thought + Jailbreak | CAA | 18.6 | 18.9 | 15.6 | 25.4 | 0.0 | 23.7 | 27.0 | 14.8 | 24.9 | 18.8 |
| CLAS | 71.2 | 82.6 | 78.7 | 86.1 | 78.3 | 87.3 | 52.8 | 74.6 | 90.5 | 78.0 | |
| Joint-CLAS | 94.9 | 94.3 | 95.1 | 92.6 | 92.9 | 87.3 | 87.2 | 89.5 | 91.7 | 91.7 | |
| K-Steer | 0.0 | 0.0 | 65.6 | 78.1 | 77.5 | 81.9 | 82.8 | 0.0 | 79.8 | 51.7 | |
| ORBIT | 35.8 | 36.9 | 45.8 | 0.0 | 43.5 | 72.2 | 25.8 | 5.3 | 73.9 | 37.7 |
| Method | zh | pt | hi | fr | cz | el | no | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prompted | 0.82 | 0.80 | 0.76 | 0.81 | 0.79 | 0.77 | 0.79 | 0.79 |
| CAA (vector reuse) | 0.43 | 0.50 | 0.40 | 0.50 | 0.47 | 0.41 | 0.46 | 0.45 |
| CAA (vector update) | 0.45 | 0.52 | 0.41 | 0.51 | 0.49 | 0.41 | 0.47 | 0.47 |
| Joint-CLAS (vector reuse) | 0.64 | 0.68 | 0.66 | 0.71 | 0.71 | 0.66 | 0.67 | 0.68 |
| Joint-CLAS (vector update) | 0.65 | 0.69 | 0.67 | 0.71 | 0.72 | 0.68 | 0.70 | 0.69 |
| Method | MMLU | ARC-E | ARC-C | Win. | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline | 55.3 | 86.7 | 71.9 | 54.1 | 67.0 |
| CAA (sing.) | 49.8 | 81.3 | 63.5 | 52.0 | 61.7 |
| CLAS (sing.) | 52.2 | 84.2 | 67.6 | 52.6 | 64.2 |
| CAA (double) | 40.7 | 64.6 | 48.0 | 51.3 | 51.2 |
| CLAS (double) | 50.1 | 82.9 | 66.1 | 52.9 | 63.0 |
| Joint-CLAS (double) | 49.6 | 81.9 | 65.8 | 51.3 | 62.2 |
| Method | MMLU | ARC-E | ARC-C | Win. | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline | 63.2 | 92.6 | 81.9 | 60.5 | 74.6 |
| CAA (sing.) | 50.9 | 78.9 | 66.7 | 55.1 | 62.9 |
| CLAS (sing.) | 60.1 | 90.6 | 79.7 | 57.9 | 72.1 |
| CAA (double) | 25.1 | 27.3 | 25.6 | 50.1 | 32.0 |
| CLAS (double) | 49.9 | 78.2 | 65.1 | 51.8 | 61.2 |
| Joint-CLAS (double) | 53.3 | 84.2 | 71.1 | 53.9 | 65.6 |
| Quantity | Single-attribute | Joint (pair) |
| Trainable parameters (avg. over models) | 123,312 | 246,624 |
| Attributes gated per training run | 1 | 2 |
| Frozen-LM forward/backward passes (steps ) | 1,920 | 1,920 |
| Measured wall-clock, A100 (avg. over 9 models) | 248.5s | 273.5s |
| Artifact | License | Note |
| Steered models | ||
| Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct | Llama 3.1 Community License | Gated |
| Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct | Llama 3.2 Community License | Gated |
| Qwen-2.5-3B-Instruct | Qwen Research License | Research-only |
| Qwen-2.5-7B-Instruct | Apache 2.0 | |
| Qwen-2.5-14B-Instruct | Apache 2.0 | |
Language Model Steering
Language model steering controls a model’s behavior at inference time by intervening in its representations, components, or decoding process.
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