THE FROZEN SEAM

A model learns a fact from text — then a spoken question about the same fact lands somewhere else in hidden-state space, and the answer can't be reached. The knowledge is in there; the access is broken at the seam between modalities. The repair rule is strict: the core stays frozen — only a small detachable operator at the interface may move speech states. Four operators compete below. (After Hsu et al., AFFIRM, arXiv:2610.20253, Oct 2026 — a labelled toy in 2D, not their model, data, or code.)

Detach the operator and every spoken question breaks again — the core never changed, so nothing was unlearned. That is the point of repairing the seam instead of the mind.
spoken questions answered — no repair – · global – · low-rank – · AFFIRM –
toy model · canvas 2d · 2D hidden states, invented distortion
ice = the frozen checkpoint · gold ring = answer reachable