CausalGrok / code /experiments /mechinterp_m5_steering.py
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"""M5 — Activation Steering: causally manipulate the shortcut direction.
For one checkpoint (default: peak_ood_epoch from summary.json), we:
1. Extract avgpool features for train (H0-H2) + OOD (H4) splits.
2. Identify the dominant shortcut direction `v_s` as the top eigenvector
of the between-hospital covariance (LDA's first projection direction).
3. Sweep α ∈ {-3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3} and apply
h' = h + α · σ_align · v_s
where σ_align is the std of features projected onto v_s (so α counts
in 'standard deviations of shortcut activation').
4. Re-classify OOD with the original head.
5. Re-fit hospital + tumor probes on the steered features and report
accuracy curves.
Strong mechanistic claim if:
- tumor-head OOD acc declines monotonically as |α| grows
- hospital-probe acc on steered features rises with |α|
- tumor-probe acc on steered features stays approximately flat (the
*causal* feature isn't aligned with the shortcut direction)
Usage
-----
python -m experiments.mechinterp_m5_steering \\
--run_dir experiments/runs/<id> \\
--data_root data/wilds \\
[--epoch 50] # default: peak_ood_epoch from summary.json
[--max_samples 1000] [--alphas " -3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3 "]
"""
from __future__ import annotations
import argparse
import json
from pathlib import Path
from typing import Dict, List, Tuple
import matplotlib
matplotlib.use("Agg")
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import torch
import torch.nn as nn
from sklearn.linear_model import LogisticRegression
from sklearn.preprocessing import StandardScaler
from experiments.mechinterp_m1 import (
register_hooks, extract_features, load_model_from_checkpoint,
find_checkpoints,
)
from experiments.mechinterp_m4_ablation import (
_select_epoch, _build_loaders,
_classifier_logits_from_features, _accuracy,
)
def _top_lda_direction(X: np.ndarray, hospital_ids: np.ndarray) -> np.ndarray:
"""Return a unit vector aligned with the dominant between-hospital direction
in feature space (LDA-1)."""
classes = np.unique(hospital_ids)
global_mean = X.mean(axis=0, keepdims=True)
means = np.vstack([
X[hospital_ids == c].mean(axis=0, keepdims=True) - global_mean
for c in classes
])
# SVD: rows of Vt are the orthonormal between-class directions ranked by
# singular value (variance explained between hospitals).
U, s, Vt = np.linalg.svd(means, full_matrices=False)
return Vt[0] # (D,) unit vector
def run_steering(
run_dir: Path,
data_root: str,
epoch: int | None = None,
max_samples: int = 1000,
device: str = "cuda",
alphas: List[float] = None,
) -> Dict:
if alphas is None:
alphas = [-3.0, -2.0, -1.0, -0.5, 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0]
epoch, ckpt_path = _select_epoch(run_dir, epoch)
print(f"\n M5 — Activation Steering")
print(f" run_dir : {run_dir.name}")
print(f" epoch : {epoch} ({ckpt_path.name})")
print(f" alphas : {alphas}")
model = load_model_from_checkpoint(str(ckpt_path), n_classes=2, device=device)
model.eval()
register_hooks(model)
cfg_path = run_dir / "config.json"
seed = 42
if cfg_path.exists():
seed = json.loads(cfg_path.read_text()).get("seed", 42)
train_loader, ood_loader = _build_loaders(data_root, max_samples, seed=seed)
print(f" Extracting features...")
feats_train, hosp_train, tumor_train = extract_features(
model, train_loader, device, max_samples=max_samples
)
feats_ood, hosp_ood, tumor_ood = extract_features(
model, ood_loader, device, max_samples=max_samples // 2
)
layer = "avgpool"
X_tr = np.asarray(feats_train[layer]); X_tr = X_tr.reshape(X_tr.shape[0], -1)
X_ood = np.asarray(feats_ood[layer]); X_ood = X_ood.reshape(X_ood.shape[0], -1)
hosp_train = np.asarray(hosp_train)
hosp_ood = np.asarray(hosp_ood)
tumor_train = np.asarray(tumor_train)
tumor_ood = np.asarray(tumor_ood)
# Standardize for probe-fitting; un-standardize when feeding head
scaler = StandardScaler().fit(X_tr)
X_tr_n = scaler.transform(X_tr)
X_ood_n = scaler.transform(X_ood)
# 1. Top LDA direction in normalized feature space
v = _top_lda_direction(X_tr_n, hosp_train) # (D,) unit vec
# Std of training features projected onto v (scale unit for α)
sigma = float(np.std(X_tr_n @ v))
print(f" Top hospital direction v_s : ‖v‖={np.linalg.norm(v):.3f}, "
f"σ(X_tr·v)={sigma:.3f}")
# 2. Pre-fit reference probes on un-steered train features
hosp_clf = LogisticRegression(max_iter=500, C=1.0, solver="lbfgs",
multi_class="auto", n_jobs=-1).fit(X_tr_n, hosp_train)
tumor_clf = LogisticRegression(max_iter=500, C=1.0, solver="lbfgs",
multi_class="auto", n_jobs=-1).fit(X_tr_n, tumor_train)
# 3. Sweep α
sweep = []
for alpha in alphas:
# Steer features along v in normalized space, then un-scale for the head.
X_ood_steered_n = X_ood_n + alpha * sigma * v[None, :]
X_ood_steered = scaler.inverse_transform(X_ood_steered_n)
# Head OOD accuracy
logits = _classifier_logits_from_features(model, X_ood_steered, layer, device)
head_acc = _accuracy(logits, tumor_ood)
# Probe accuracies on steered features
if len(np.unique(hosp_ood)) > 1:
hosp_acc = hosp_clf.score(X_ood_steered_n, hosp_ood)
else:
hosp_acc = float("nan")
tumor_acc = tumor_clf.score(X_ood_steered_n, tumor_ood)
sweep.append({
"alpha": float(alpha),
"head_ood_acc": head_acc,
"hospital_probe": hosp_acc,
"tumor_probe": tumor_acc,
})
print(f" α={alpha:+.2f} head_ood={head_acc:.3f} "
f"hosp_probe={hosp_acc if not np.isnan(hosp_acc) else 'nan':<5} "
f"tumor_probe={tumor_acc:.3f}")
return {
"run_id": run_dir.name,
"epoch": epoch,
"layer": layer,
"max_samples": max_samples,
"v_norm": float(np.linalg.norm(v)),
"sigma": sigma,
"sweep": sweep,
}
def plot_steering(result: Dict, out_path: Path):
sweep = result["sweep"]
a = [r["alpha"] for r in sweep]
head = [r["head_ood_acc"] for r in sweep]
hosp = [r["hospital_probe"] for r in sweep]
tumor = [r["tumor_probe"] for r in sweep]
fig, axes = plt.subplots(1, 2, figsize=(13, 5))
# Panel A — Head OOD acc vs α
ax = axes[0]
ax.plot(a, head, "k-o", lw=2, ms=7)
ax.axvline(0, color="gray", ls=":", lw=1, alpha=0.5)
ax.set_xlabel("Steering coefficient α (in σ-units of shortcut direction)")
ax.set_ylabel("Head OOD (H4) accuracy")
ax.set_title("Causal effect of steering activations along v_s\n"
"(monotonic decline as |α| grows = causal evidence)",
fontweight="bold", fontsize=10)
ax.grid(alpha=0.3)
ax.set_ylim(0.4, max(0.85, max(head) + 0.05))
# Panel B — Probe accuracies vs α
ax = axes[1]
ax.plot(a, hosp, "r-s", lw=2, ms=7, label="Hospital probe (↑ with |α| = good)")
ax.plot(a, tumor, "g-^", lw=2, ms=7, label="Tumor probe (flat = causal disjoint)")
ax.axvline(0, color="gray", ls=":", lw=1, alpha=0.5)
ax.set_xlabel("Steering coefficient α")
ax.set_ylabel("Probe accuracy")
ax.set_title("Probe responses to steering", fontweight="bold", fontsize=10)
ax.legend(loc="best", fontsize=9); ax.grid(alpha=0.3)
ax.set_ylim(0, 1.05)
fig.suptitle(f"M5 — Activation Steering: {result['run_id']} "
f"• ep{result['epoch']} • layer={result['layer']}",
fontsize=11, fontweight="bold")
plt.tight_layout()
fig.savefig(out_path, dpi=180, bbox_inches="tight")
plt.close(fig)
def main():
p = argparse.ArgumentParser()
p.add_argument("--run_dir", required=True)
p.add_argument("--data_root", default="data/wilds")
p.add_argument("--epoch", type=int, default=None)
p.add_argument("--max_samples", type=int, default=1000)
p.add_argument("--device", default="cuda")
p.add_argument("--alphas", default=None,
help="Comma-separated α values, e.g. ' -3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3 '")
p.add_argument("--all_epochs", action="store_true",
help="Sweep across all periodic checkpoints; output a trajectory")
args = p.parse_args()
alphas = None
if args.alphas is not None:
alphas = [float(x) for x in args.alphas.split(",")]
run_dir = Path(args.run_dir)
out_dir = run_dir / "mechinterp"
out_dir.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
if args.all_epochs:
# Trajectory mode: run M5 at every periodic checkpoint
ckpts = find_checkpoints(str(run_dir))
seen = set(); uniq = []
for ep, p in ckpts:
if ep in seen:
continue
seen.add(ep); uniq.append((ep, p))
traj = []
for ep, _ in uniq:
try:
r = run_steering(
run_dir=run_dir, data_root=args.data_root, epoch=ep,
max_samples=args.max_samples, device=args.device, alphas=alphas,
)
traj.append(r)
except Exception as e:
print(f" [skip ep{ep}] {e}")
out = out_dir / "m5_steering_trajectory.json"
out.write_text(json.dumps(traj, indent=2))
print(f"\n → {out}")
return
result = run_steering(
run_dir=run_dir, data_root=args.data_root, epoch=args.epoch,
max_samples=args.max_samples, device=args.device, alphas=alphas,
)
base = out_dir / f"m5_steering_ep{result['epoch']:05d}"
base.with_suffix(".json").write_text(json.dumps(result, indent=2))
plot_steering(result, base.with_suffix(".png"))
print(f"\n → {base.with_suffix('.json')}")
print(f" → {base.with_suffix('.png')}")
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()