Persona Cartography: Charting Language Model Personality Traits in Weight Space

Abstract

arXiv:2607.07916v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language models exhibit recurring behavioural patterns -- personas -- that shape generalisation and safety, but we lack reliable tools for decomposing, measuring, and controlling them. Our central insight is to treat personas as positions in a space of behavioural traits, using the OCEAN framework to describe model personas in terms of Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. We train low-rank adapters to amp