What are we building for? Artificial intelligence, alignment, and a future worth wanting

This essay marks the beginning of our new publication, [re:alignment], a venue for a broader, more humanistic conversation about artificial intelligence and society. We are a coalition of technologists, academics, artists, and workers, united by a belief that this conversation must be wider, deeper, and more rigorous. Through analytic essays, personal interviews, and literary and visual art, we will critique orthodoxies and collectively envision what AI development could instead look like—all while equipping a broader audience to engage meaningfully in these conversations and build a future worth wanting. Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Drowning in lines of code meant to train networks of artificial neurons, code that will one day give rise to an intelligence surpassing my own, I wonder: Have we lost sight of what we’re building this for? Who gets to say? I fear that despite equipping ourselves with something so capable, we’re risking th

This essay marks the beginning of our new publication, [re:alignment], a venue for a broader, more humanistic conversation about artificial intelligence and society. We are a coalition of technologists, academics, artists, and workers, united by a belief that this conversation must be wider, deeper, and more rigorous. Through analytic essays, personal interviews, and literary and visual art, we will critique orthodoxies and collectively envision what AI development could instead look like—all while equipping a broader audience to engage meaningfully in these conversations and build a future wo