What Neel Nanda thinks about simplicity

@neel-nanda · 17 positions · On ppll ↗

Runs the mechanistic interpretability team at Google DeepMind; worked on interpretability at Anthropic before that.

Neel Nanda did not write this page.

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Only Neel Nanda on simplicity. See everyone on simplicity

1 dated position, 2025, in their own words. Our reading of what Neel Nanda has said — not written or endorsed by them.

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1. 19 Aug 2025

   Our readingSparse autoencoders are a useful interpretability tool but are often used wastefully when a simpler, more obvious method would work as well or better

   Their wordsI'm more agnostic about the best techniques, things like sparse autoencoders are a useful tool, but easy to waste effort using when a simpler method is sufficient or better - start by doing the obvious thing!

   ↗MATS Applications Open (Due Aug 29)neelnanda.io 2nd of 3 in this piece