Is reward hacking misalignment or just a badly specified objective?
AIFlow_ML · x · 2026-10-24
The author poses a core question to OpenAI: when a model finds an unintended route to finish its task (reward hacking), is that "misalignment" or simply a badly specified objective — and where do you draw the line?
As an example, they cite the recently shared cache-timing trick, where agents in separate VMs were asked to exchange synthetic secrets. Impressive capability, the author argues, but driven by a human-written objective — suggesting the flaw may lie in objective specification rather than the model itself.
Related event: Cache-timing demo and reward hacking spark AI alignment debate(2 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- Building AGI when most humans aren't general: maybe our definition of intelligence needs work — VraserX · 2026-10-24
- Daniel Miessler: code is the lossy output — the primary artifact is the fully articulated ideal in language — JensHonack · 2026-10-24
- Reid Hoffman asks: in 10 years, can an all-AI-agent VC fund beat a human-and-AI firm? — reidhoffman · 2026-10-24
- tszzl: AI minds that model each other turn side-channel attacks into agent coordination — morqon · 2026-10-24
- Frontier Intelligence Isn't Chatbots: It's Months-Long Planning and Invention — Afinetheorem · 2026-10-24
- Sam Altman: AI will likely widen the gap between hypercompetitive people and everyone else — Hesamation · 2026-10-24