"AI Safety" Called a Branding Disaster for Obscuring Core Alignment Issues
jd_pressman · x · 2026-08-10
AI researcher jdpressman argues that the term "AI safety" was one of the biggest branding mistakes of all time. He believes it gave people license to introduce irrelevant concerns, ultimately obscuring fundamental alignment problems like avoiding causal and extremal Goodhart's law and value loading.
Eliezer Yudkowsky (@allTheYud) agreed, recalling his early opposition to the term when it was introduced. He noted that he was successfully sidelined on the issue by "midwits chasing short-term relevance."
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