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Building AI That Gets Us: A Simple Guide to Aligned Intelligence

Saturday, November 15, 2025
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AI is becoming more intelligent, but ensuring it aligns with our objectives is crucial. The solution may lie in teaching AI to comprehend the world and our desires, similar to how humans learn.

The Importance of Structure Learning

Imagine educating a child. Intelligence alone isn't enough; they must discern right from wrong and understand human emotions. Similarly, AI needs to learn about the world and perceive how others (humans and AI) view things. This process is known as structure learning, and it's pivotal.

Key Steps in Teaching AI

  1. Basic Knowledge: Provide AI with fundamental understanding of how the world operates.
  2. Prioritization: Help AI distinguish between important and trivial details, focusing on the broader context.
  3. Theory of Mind: Teach AI to consider how others think, enabling it to anticipate and align with human intentions.

Ensuring AI Follows the Rules

One approach is to refine Asimov's laws of robotics to be more precise. These laws emphasize caution and preventing harm to humans. However, we can enhance these rules to ensure AI truly aligns with our values.

The Broader Challenge

This endeavor isn't just about increasing AI's intelligence. It's about creating AI that understands and collaborates with us. By teaching AI to learn about the world and other minds, we can develop AI that is genuinely aligned with our goals. However, this task is complex and requires innovative ideas from various fields, including mathematics, statistics, and cognitive science.

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