Alex Epstein: Call It 'Control,' Not 'Alignment,' in AI Safety
AlexTensor · x · 2026-10-12
Alex Epstein argues the AI safety debate should replace the term "alignment" with "control."
In his view, "alignment" was coined by people who anthropomorphize LLMs — treating them as conscious, potentially competitive beings that must somehow be coaxed into aligning with us. A better framing: these are computers that are inherently harder to control than ordinary ones, and therefore require extra effort to be controlled in service of our purposes.
The take was prompted by Brad Gerstner's (bgurley) tweet that AI alignment "is" the safety problem in AI.
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