“Paths and waystations in AI safety” by Joe Carlsmith

(Audio version here (read by the author), or search for "Joe Carlsmith Audio" on your podcast app.

This is the third essay in a series that I’m calling “How do we solve the alignment problem?”. I’m hoping that the individual essays can be read fairly well on their own, but see this introduction for a summary of the essays that have been released thus far, and for a bit more about the series as a whole.)

1. Introduction

The first essay in this series defined the alignment problem; the second tried to clarify when this problem arises. In this essay, I want to lay out a high-level picture of how I think about getting from here either to a solution, or to some acceptable alternative. In particular:

• I distinguish between the underlying technical parameters relevant to the alignment problem (the “problem profile”) and our civilization's capacity to respond [...]

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Outline:

(00:28) 1. Introduction

(02:26) 2. Goal states

(03:12) 3. Problem profile and civilizational competence

(06:57) 4. A toy model of AI safety

(15:56) 5. Sources of labor

(19:09) 6. Waystations on the path

The original text contained 34 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
March 11th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kBgySGcASWa4FWdD9/paths-and-waystations-in-ai-safety-1

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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