AI Glossary
Value Alignment
What is Value Alignment?
The challenge of ensuring that an AI system's goals, behaviors, and outputs are consistent with human values — particularly the values of those affected by its decisions. Value alignment is a central problem in AI safety research. It is distinct from capability: a highly capable AI that pursues misaligned goals is considered more dangerous, not less.
Example in practice
An AI recommendation algorithm that maximises user engagement by surfacing outrage-inducing content is highly capable but misaligned — optimising a proxy metric (clicks) at the cost of the human value (user wellbeing) the system should serve.
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