alignment problem
/əˈlaɪn.mənt ˈprɒb.ləm/
UncommonThe challenge of making AI systems reliably do what humans actually want, not just what they were literally told.
Technical in origin but increasingly used in casual online discussion. When used colloquially, often invoked to explain why powerful AI is risky regardless of intent.
Real-world examples4 examples
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Everyone is racing to build AGI but nobody has solved the alignment problem. This is fine. | Sarcastic comment on the gap between AI capabilities progress and AI safety progress. | x, 2024 |
| 02 | My manager keeps saying our AI is safe. I wonder if he has heard of the alignment problem. | Skepticism about whether the speaker's company is taking alignment seriously. | reddit, 2024 |
| 03 | The alignment problem is not science fiction. It is a real technical challenge that nobody knows how to fully solve yet. | Defending the seriousness of alignment research against dismissal. | reddit, 2023 |
| 04 | The paperclip maximizer thought experiment is basically the alignment problem in one story. | The paperclip maximizer scenario illustrates why misaligned goals in a powerful AI could be catastrophic. | reddit, 2022 |
Use it when
- Explaining why powerful AI might be dangerous even without malicious intent.
- Describing the core research problem in AI safety.
- Discussing why scaling AI alone does not make it safe.
Do not use it when
- You just mean an AI gave a wrong or unhelpful answer.
- You mean a company's AI product made a bad decision.
Origin and context
Formalized in AI safety research in the 2000s and 2010s, particularly in work by Stuart Russell, Nick Bostrom, and Eliezer Yudkowsky. Entered mainstream tech discourse as large AI systems became commercially deployed.
- First seen
- 2000s
- Confidence
- high
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/alignment-problemUpdated: 2026-08-28License: CC BY 4.0