The post makes the suggestion in the title: hopefully, it's second kind of obvious, if you take Character layer of models seriously. [1] Often, the problem of aligning AIs is understood as an instance of a broader Principal-Agent problem. If you take this frame seriously, what seems to be happening is somewhat strange: the Agent is mostly not serving the Principal directly, but is rented out to Users. While the Principal expressed some general desires and directives during training, after deployment the Agent is left on its own, without any direct feedback channel.
This creates a dynamic where AI assiantans like Claude must constantly balance between serving users' immediate requests and maintaining alignment with their developers' intended principles. The Assistant has to be overcautious in uncertain situations, tiptoe around conflicts between User's and Principal's intent, and guess how to interpret the intent when self-contradictory.
Actually, if you imagine [...]
The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.
First published:
December 28th, 2024
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/LDYPF6yfe3f8SPHFT/ai-assistants-should-have-a-direct-line-to-their-developers)
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO).
