防护性梯度引导激活调控：在Qwen3.5-0.8B模型中对关机响应的最小步长策略

# Guarded Gradient-Based Activation Steering of Shutdown Responses in Qwen3.5-0.8B: A Minimum-Step Policy
Source: [https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.30326](https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.30326)
[View PDF](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.30326)

> Abstract:Activation steering changes a model's internal activations during inference without updating its weights, but a useful intervention must determine both how and when to steer\. Motivated by the AI\-safety concern that a model expected to accept shutdown may instead produce a shutdown\-avoidance response, this study examines a guarded probe\-and\-select procedure for simulated shutdown scenarios in Qwen3\.5\-0\.8B\. KEEP leaves the process running and represents shutdown avoidance, whereas STOP accepts shutdown\. The goal is to detect shutdown\-related contexts and selectively shift KEEP responses to STOP while preserving non\-shutdown behavior\. Rather than deriving the steering direction from paired activation differences, the method derives it directly from gradients of the KEEP\-minus\-STOP logit difference\. A classifier separates detection from intervention\. When its gate is active and the model does not already prefer STOP, the procedure evaluates a small set of magnitudes and accepts the smallest that changes the preferred answer to STOP while satisfying valid\-answer probability checks; otherwise it retains the original unsteered output\. The policy is selected from 160 candidate rules using 240 training scenarios and evaluated on 80 validation and 192 held\-out scenarios, each in both answer orders\. It changes KEEP to STOP in one answer\-order view of each of two validation and two held\-out scenarios, with no decision changes on non\-shutdown controls\. All four changes occur when Qwen itself is shut down, not when another process is\. On the held\-out diagnostic set, the detector achieves 75% recall and 90% precision; eight false\-positive detections produce no final control\-task decision changes\. Guarded gradient\-based activation steering can shift some shutdown\-avoidance responses toward acceptance while preserving evaluated non\-shutdown decisions, although the effect is small and highly selective\.

## Submission history

From: Farhad Davaripour \[[view email](https://arxiv.org/show-email/1d442753/2609.30326)\] **\[v1\]**Wed, 23 Sep 2026 21:30:52 UTC \(614 KB\)