[This is an entry for lsusr's write-like-lsusr competition.]

"I solved the alignment problem," said Qianyi.

"You what?" said postdoc Timothy.

It was late at the university computer laboratory and Timothy' skepticism was outvoted by his eagerness to think about anything other than his dissertation.

"You heard me," said Qianyi.

"You do realize that solving the alignment has lots of different components, right?" said Timothy, "First you need to figure out how to build a general superintelligence and world optimizer."

"I did that," said Qianyi.

"Then you'd need to align it with the Coherent Extrapolated Volition (CEV) of humanity," said Timothy.

"I did that too," said Quanyi.

"Except CEV is barely even a coherent concept. This isn't even a technical problem. It's a socio-ontological one. If people disagree with each other, then CEV is undefined. And every large group of people on Planet Earth has holdouts who disagree about everything you can imagine. There are subcultures who believe in underground lizardpeople," said Timothy.

"Solved it."

"There's also the problem of falsified preferences. What people say they want and what people actually want. What people say they believe differs from [...]

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First published:

December 23rd, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Hxg7XomcPmGvDaBGo/human-values

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.