Position: Mechanistic Interpretability Must Disclose Identification Assumptions for Causal Claims

Abstract

Mechanistic interpretability papers increasingly use causal vocabulary: circuits, mediators, causal abstraction, monosemanticity. Such claims require explicit identification assumptions. A purposive audit of 10 papers across four methodological strands finds no dedicated identification-assumptions section and a recurring pattern: validation metrics such as faithfulness, completeness, monosemanticity, alignment, or ablation effects are reported as causal support without stating the assumptions that make them identifying. A two-human-coder audit on $n=30$ reproduces the direction of the main finding: dedicated identification sections are absent, and validation-metric substitution is common, though exact Dim B/D counts are coding-rule sensitive. The paper proposes a disclosure norm: state whether the claim is causal, name the identification strategy, enumerate assumptions, stress at least one, and explain how conclusions shift if assumptions fail. Validation is not identification.