{"id":"https://openalex.org/W7162631674","doi":"https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2605.27997","title":"Where Does Toxicity Live? Mechanistic Localization and Targeted Suppression in Language Models","display_name":"Where Does Toxicity Live? Mechanistic Localization and Targeted Suppression in Language Models","publication_year":2026,"publication_date":"2026-05-27","ids":{"openalex":"https://openalex.org/W7162631674","doi":"https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2605.27997"},"language":null,"primary_location":{"id":"doi:10.48550/arxiv.2605.27997","is_oa":true,"landing_page_url":"https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2605.27997","pdf_url":null,"source":{"id":"https://openalex.org/S4306400194","display_name":"arXiv (Cornell University)","issn_l":null,"issn":null,"is_oa":true,"is_in_doaj":false,"is_core":false,"host_organization":"https://openalex.org/I205783295","host_organization_name":"Cornell University","host_organization_lineage":["https://openalex.org/I205783295"],"host_organization_lineage_names":[],"type":"repository"},"license":"cc-by","license_id":"https://openalex.org/licenses/cc-by","version":null,"is_accepted":false,"is_published":false,"raw_source_name":null,"raw_type":"article"},"type":"preprint","indexed_in":["datacite"],"open_access":{"is_oa":true,"oa_status":"green","oa_url":"https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2605.27997","any_repository_has_fulltext":true},"authorships":[{"author_position":"first","author":{"id":"https://openalex.org/A5137295016","display_name":"Himanshu Beniwal","orcid":null},"institutions":[],"countries":[],"is_corresponding":false,"raw_author_name":"Beniwal, Himanshu","raw_affiliation_strings":[],"raw_orcid":null,"affiliations":[]},{"author_position":"last","author":{"id":"https://openalex.org/A5137202814","display_name":"Mayank Singh","orcid":null},"institutions":[],"countries":[],"is_corresponding":false,"raw_author_name":"Singh, Mayank","raw_affiliation_strings":[],"raw_orcid":null,"affiliations":[]}],"institutions":[],"countries_distinct_count":0,"institutions_distinct_count":2,"corresponding_author_ids":[],"corresponding_institution_ids":[],"apc_list":null,"apc_paid":null,"fwci":null,"has_fulltext":false,"cited_by_count":0,"citation_normalized_percentile":null,"cited_by_percentile_year":null,"biblio":{"volume":null,"issue":null,"first_page":null,"last_page":null},"is_retracted":false,"is_paratext":false,"is_xpac":false,"primary_topic":{"id":"https://openalex.org/T12262","display_name":"Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection","score":0.3637000024318695,"subfield":{"id":"https://openalex.org/subfields/1702","display_name":"Artificial Intelligence"},"field":{"id":"https://openalex.org/fields/17","display_name":"Computer Science"},"domain":{"id":"https://openalex.org/domains/3","display_name":"Physical Sciences"}},"topics":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/T12262","display_name":"Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection","score":0.3637000024318695,"subfield":{"id":"https://openalex.org/subfields/1702","display_name":"Artificial Intelligence"},"field":{"id":"https://openalex.org/fields/17","display_name":"Computer Science"},"domain":{"id":"https://openalex.org/domains/3","display_name":"Physical Sciences"}},{"id":"https://openalex.org/T11689","display_name":"Adversarial Robustness in Machine Learning","score":0.25949999690055847,"subfield":{"id":"https://openalex.org/subfields/1702","display_name":"Artificial Intelligence"},"field":{"id":"https://openalex.org/fields/17","display_name":"Computer Science"},"domain":{"id":"https://openalex.org/domains/3","display_name":"Physical Sciences"}},{"id":"https://openalex.org/T10028","display_name":"Topic Modeling","score":0.08460000157356262,"subfield":{"id":"https://openalex.org/subfields/1702","display_name":"Artificial Intelligence"},"field":{"id":"https://openalex.org/fields/17","display_name":"Computer Science"},"domain":{"id":"https://openalex.org/domains/3","display_name":"Physical Sciences"}}],"keywords":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/keywords/interpretability","display_name":"Interpretability","score":0.9312000274658203},{"id":"https://openalex.org/keywords/language-model","display_name":"Language model","score":0.5320000052452087},{"id":"https://openalex.org/keywords/toxicity","display_name":"Toxicity","score":0.5206000208854675},{"id":"https://openalex.org/keywords/bridging","display_name":"Bridging (networking)","score":0.453900009393692},{"id":"https://openalex.org/keywords/reduction","display_name":"Reduction (mathematics)","score":0.32010000944137573},{"id":"https://openalex.org/keywords/retraining","display_name":"Retraining","score":0.31049999594688416}],"concepts":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/C2781067378","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17027399","display_name":"Interpretability","level":2,"score":0.9312000274658203},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C41008148","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21198","display_name":"Computer science","level":0,"score":0.5882999897003174},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C137293760","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3621696","display_name":"Language model","level":2,"score":0.5320000052452087},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C29730261","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q274160","display_name":"Toxicity","level":2,"score":0.5206000208854675},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C174348530","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q188635","display_name":"Bridging (networking)","level":2,"score":0.453900009393692},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C154945302","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11660","display_name":"Artificial intelligence","level":1,"score":0.41179999709129333},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C70721500","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q177005","display_name":"Computational biology","level":1,"score":0.36059999465942383},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C111335779","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3454686","display_name":"Reduction (mathematics)","level":2,"score":0.32010000944137573},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C169760540","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q207011","display_name":"Neuroscience","level":1,"score":0.31790000200271606},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C2778712577","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3505966","display_name":"Retraining","level":2,"score":0.31049999594688416},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C3019325349","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3874753","display_name":"Dual mode","level":2,"score":0.29840001463890076},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C2780980858","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q110022","display_name":"Dual (grammatical number)","level":2,"score":0.2897000014781952},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C185592680","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2329","display_name":"Chemistry","level":0,"score":0.2773999869823456},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C112930515","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4389547","display_name":"Risk analysis (engineering)","level":1,"score":0.2766000032424927},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C119857082","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2539","display_name":"Machine learning","level":1,"score":0.27489998936653137},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C204321447","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30642","display_name":"Natural language processing","level":1,"score":0.27250000834465027},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C89611455","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6804646","display_name":"Mechanism (biology)","level":2,"score":0.26910001039505005},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C99844830","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q102441924","display_name":"Scaling","level":2,"score":0.2662000060081482},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C149364088","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q185917","display_name":"Translation (biology)","level":4,"score":0.25369998812675476}],"mesh":[],"locations_count":1,"locations":[{"id":"doi:10.48550/arxiv.2605.27997","is_oa":true,"landing_page_url":"https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2605.27997","pdf_url":null,"source":{"id":"https://openalex.org/S4306400194","display_name":"arXiv (Cornell University)","issn_l":null,"issn":null,"is_oa":true,"is_in_doaj":false,"is_core":false,"host_organization":"https://openalex.org/I205783295","host_organization_name":"Cornell University","host_organization_lineage":["https://openalex.org/I205783295"],"host_organization_lineage_names":[],"type":"repository"},"license":"cc-by","license_id":"https://openalex.org/licenses/cc-by","version":null,"is_accepted":false,"is_published":null,"raw_source_name":null,"raw_type":"article"}],"best_oa_location":{"id":"doi:10.48550/arxiv.2605.27997","is_oa":true,"landing_page_url":"https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2605.27997","pdf_url":null,"source":{"id":"https://openalex.org/S4306400194","display_name":"arXiv (Cornell University)","issn_l":null,"issn":null,"is_oa":true,"is_in_doaj":false,"is_core":false,"host_organization":"https://openalex.org/I205783295","host_organization_name":"Cornell University","host_organization_lineage":["https://openalex.org/I205783295"],"host_organization_lineage_names":[],"type":"repository"},"license":"cc-by","license_id":"https://openalex.org/licenses/cc-by","version":null,"is_accepted":false,"is_published":false,"raw_source_name":null,"raw_type":"article"},"sustainable_development_goals":[{"display_name":"Peace, Justice and strong institutions","score":0.7111927270889282,"id":"https://metadata.un.org/sdg/16"}],"awards":[],"funders":[],"has_content":{"grobid_xml":false,"pdf":false},"content_urls":null,"referenced_works_count":0,"referenced_works":[],"related_works":[],"abstract_inverted_index":{"Large":[0],"language":[1,91,141],"models":[2],"frequently":[3],"generate":[4],"toxic,":[5],"hateful,":[6],"or":[7,18,62],"harmful":[8],"content,":[9],"yet":[10],"existing":[11],"mitigation":[12],"methods":[13],"rely":[14],"on":[15],"costly":[16],"retraining":[17],"output-level":[19],"filtering":[20],"with":[21,128],"no":[22],"mechanistic":[23,126],"insight":[24],"into":[25],"where":[26],"toxicity":[27,41,87,98],"originates":[28],"internally.":[29],"We":[30],"introduce":[31],"Meow2X":[32],"and":[33,45,53,78,109],"TRNE,":[34],"two":[35,76],"complementary":[36],"retraining-free":[37],"frameworks":[38],"that":[39,97],"localize":[40],"to":[42],"specific":[43],"layers":[44],"neurons":[46],"by":[47,113],"analyzing":[48],"activation":[49],"differentials":[50],"between":[51],"toxic":[52],"neutral":[54],"prompts,":[55],"then":[56],"suppress":[57],"them":[58],"via":[59],"inference-time":[60],"scaling":[61],"minimal":[63],"rank-one":[64],"weight":[65],"edits":[66],"--":[67,116],"without":[68],"any":[69],"gradient":[70],"descent.":[71],"Evaluations":[72],"across":[73,107],"five":[74],"LMs,":[75],"benchmarks,":[77],"90":[79],"configurations":[80],"using":[81],"dual":[82],"safety":[83,122],"evaluators":[84],"demonstrate":[85],"consistent":[86],"reduction":[88],"while":[89],"preserving":[90],"modeling":[92],"quality.":[93],"Our":[94],"analysis":[95],"reveals":[96],"is":[99,110],"disproportionately":[100],"encoded":[101],"in":[102],"early":[103],"MLP":[104],"layers,":[105],"varies":[106],"architectures,":[108],"systematically":[111],"underestimated":[112],"single-evaluator":[114],"setups":[115],"underscoring":[117],"the":[118],"need":[119],"for":[120],"multi-evaluator":[121],"assessment.":[123],"By":[124],"bridging":[125],"interpretability":[127],"practical":[129],"detoxification,":[130],"our":[131],"framework":[132],"offers":[133],"a":[134],"principled":[135],"path":[136],"toward":[137],"safer,":[138],"more":[139],"transparent":[140],"models.":[142]},"counts_by_year":[],"updated_date":"2026-06-11T09:08:48.828518","created_date":"2026-05-29T00:00:00"}
