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Language Log » Interpersonal and socio-cultural alignment

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At least as far as I'm aware, the application of "alignment" to AI comes from Eliezer Yudkowsky or at least someone in his circles. He used to speak of "friendly AI" and "unfriendly AI". However, the meaning of these terms was fairly different from the plain meaning, which confused people. So at some point he switched to talking about "aligned" or "unaligned" AI. This is certainly true — see e.g. Yudkowsky's 2016 essay "The AI alignment problem: why it is hard, and where to start". However, an (almost?) exactly parallel usage was established in the sociological literature, half a century earlier, as discussed in Randall Stokes and John Hewitt, "Aligning actions" (1976): A substantial body of literature has been developed within the symbolic interactionist tradition that focuses upon various tactics, ploys, methods, procedures and techniques found in social interaction under those circumstances where some feature of a situation is problematic. Mills' (1940) concept of motive talk, Scott

Language Log >> Interpersonal and socio-cultural alignment Language Log Home About Comments policy Interpersonal and socio-cultural alignment July 17, 2025 @ 4:03 am &#183; Filed by Mark Liberman under Words words words << Tracks | The impact of different languages on our thinking and doing >> --> << previous post | next post >> In a comment on " Alignment ", Sniffnoy wrote: At least as far as I'm aware, the application of "alignment" to AI comes from Eliezer Yudkowsky or at least someone in his circles. He used to speak of "friendly AI" and "unfriendly AI". However, the meaning of these terms

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