The Cognitive Revolution · Thursday, July 9, 2026
Attempts to manipulate LLM behavior using the J-lens have shown varied success, with interventions only reliably influencing outcomes 50-70% of the time. The remaining 30-45% of cases result in unpredictable or nonsensical changes, indicating that aspects of LLM cognition remain opaque. Researchers suggest this suggests 'dark matter or dark cognition' within these models.
“the sort of rate at which the interventions into the J-space actually lead to like a sort of predictable, intuitive behavior change seem to be somewhere in the 50s to upwards of 70%.”
“But also you've got somewhere between 30 and 45% of the time where you make an intervention and you don't really get a result that makes a lot of sense or, you know, lines up with what you would have hypothesized it might be.”
“So there's definitely still some dark matter or dark cognition going on that is not fully accounted for here.”