Therefore I am. I Think
We consider the question: when a large language reasoning model makes a choice, did it think first and then decide to, or decide first and then think? In this paper, we present evidence that detectable, early-encoded decisions shape chain-of-thought in reasoning models. Specifically, we show that a simple linear probe successfully decodes tool-calling decisions from pre-generation activations with very high confidence, and in some cases, even before a single reasoning token is produced. Activation steering supports this causally: perturbing the decision direction leads to inflated deliberation, and flips behavior in many examples (between 7 - 79% depending on model and benchmark). We also...
| Authors | Esakkivel Esakkiraja, Sai Rajeswar, Denis Akhiyarov et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.AI |
| Published | 1 April 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 3 April 2026 |
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