LLMs program using Reusable and Composable Abstract Representations
When writing code, the same computation can be expressed in different programming languages and through different implementation strategies. We show that the activations of LLMs capture this shared structure in reusable and composable abstract representations when they generate code. These representations emerge in the middle layers, are reusable across programming languages, and afford the model an impressive amount of generalization ability when generating code under various interventions. Using activation steering, we show that function, programming language, and implementation strategy can be independently manipulated. The independent interventions on language and function can be flex...
| Authors | Casper L. Christensen, Kyle J. Ray, Dmitry Manning-Coe et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.LG |
| Published | 13 October 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 13 October 2026 |
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