AI Alignment

The term AI Alignment, like many new concepts associated with AI, is very broad and fuzzy. It means something like the techniques and processes to ensure that a LLM is aligned with human interests. It is usually discussed within the context of AI Safety, which can mean anything ranging from “content moderating LLM outputs” to “let’s not develop an AGI that takes over the planet and enslaves us.” There are lots of important philosophical questions that arise when we think about this effort. Human history is a series of pluralistic and conflicting “interests”, so when we try to align AI with human interests, the obvious question is whose interests? Even when we look at the good-faith attempts by some of the major AI companies to hire researchers with backgrounds in ethics and moral philosophy to help fine-tune LLMs, we can’t say either that the history of moral philosophy is in any sense settled. Should we work to perfect the general character of the LLM (virtue ethics), embed universal…