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My Weird Prompts · September 3 · 26 min

Masked Safety: How Post-Training Changes AI Behavior

What happens when you modify an AI model that's already been heavily trained? Daniel asks whether post-training can fundamentally change a model's character—and the answer is stranger than most people assume. We break down three recent papers showing that safety mechanisms aren't erased but suppressed, how representation engineering can shift behavior without touching weights, and what this means for Claude Gov, Anthropic's military-deployed model. Plus: why the Pentagon's fear of mid-mission refusal is grounded in real science, and how ParamΔ could let Anthropic maintain Claude Gov as a portable delta across model versions. Episode #902922 — open it directly at myweirdprompts.com/902922

0:00 · Intro-26:49

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show notes

What happens when you modify an AI model that's already been heavily trained? Daniel asks whether post-training can fundamentally change a model's character—and the answer is stranger than most people assume. We break down three recent papers showing that safety mechanisms aren't erased but suppressed, how representation engineering can shift behavior without touching weights, and what this means for Claude Gov, Anthropic's military-deployed model. Plus: why the Pentagon's fear of mid-mission refusal is grounded in real science, and how ParamΔ could let Anthropic maintain Claude Gov as a portable delta across model versions.

Episode #902922 — open it directly at myweirdprompts.com/902922

chapters

5 chapters