September 27, 2026
The phrase "I am AI" does not describe the model: the chat template changes its voice
A study dated Aug 9, 2026 tested 8 open-source instruct models with up to 9 billion parameters: the chat template amplified phrases such as “I’m just an AI” and weakened “I feel.” In three models, the authors found a direction in the activations that reproduced this effect.

A study dated Aug 9, 2026 tested 8 open-source instruct models with up to 9 billion parameters: the chat template amplified phrases such as “I’m just an AI” and weakened “I feel.” In three models, the authors found a direction in the activations that reproduced this effect.
Chat templates now need to be considered in research on model self-descriptions.
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