[jayd16]

Beyond that, isn't it just going to make up a narrative to fit what's in the prompt and context?

I don't think there's any special introspection that can be done even from a mechanical sense, is there? That is to say, asking any other model or a human to read what was done and explain why would give you just an accounting that is just as fictional.

[mike_hearn]

Not necessarily. The people saying that in this thread seem to be forgetting about the encrypted reasoning tokens. The why of a decision is often recorded in a part of the context window you can't see with modern models. If you ask a model, "why did you do that" it isn't necessarily going to make up a plausible answer - it can see the reasoning traces that led up to that decision and just summarize them.