High Signal Podcasts Evidence ledger
Method
Browse
← Back to evidence

Evidence receipt / evaluation

Published · transcript-backed

Speaker unverified: evaluation

27 Dec 2025 The Cognitive Revolution Controlling Tools or Aligning Creatures? Emmett Shear (Softmax) & Séb Krier (GDM), from a16z Show

“Like, historically, people thought that slavery was okay, and then they thought it wasn't. And I think you can very meaningfully say that we made moral progress.”

— Speaker unverified

Source trail

Everything needed to verify it.

Speaker
Speaker unverified
Attribution
Not verified from this transcript
Claim type
evaluation
Recorded
27 Dec 2025
Publisher
The Cognitive Revolution

Transcript context

…-knitting that happens. And if you stop doing it, goes away. And this is similar for things like cells in your body, right? Like you, there isn't like your cells aligned to being you and they're done. It's this constant ever running process of cells deciding what should I do? What should I be? Do I need to be a new job? Like, do I need to, should we be making more red blood cells or making fewer of them? Like, you aren't a fixed point, so they can't, there is no fixed alignment. hould I be? Do I need to be a new job? Like, do I need to, should we be making more red blood cells or making fewer of them? Like, you aren't a fixed point, so they can't, there is no fixed alignment. And it turns out that our society is like that. When people talk about alignment, what they're really talking about, I think, is I want an AI that is morally good, right? Like, that's what they really mean. It's like, this will act as a morally good being. And acting as a morally good being, is a process and not a destination. We don't, we never, unfortunately, we've tried taking down tablets from on high that tell you how to be a morally good being, and we use those, and they're maybe helpful, but somehow they are not being, like, you can read those and try to follow those rules and still make lots of mistakes. And so, you know, I'm not going to claim I know exactly what morality is, but morality is very obviously an ongoing learning process and something where we make moral discoveries. Like, historically, people thought that slavery was okay, and then they thought it wasn't. And I think you can very meaningfully say that we made moral progress. We made a moral discovery by realizing that that's not good. And if you think that there's such a thing as moral progress, if you think there's, or even just learning how better to pursue the moral goods we already know, then you have to believe that alignment, aligning to morality, being a moral being is a process of constant learning and of growth to reinfer what should I do from experience? And the fact that no one has any idea how to do that should not dissuade us from trying, because that's what humans do. it's really obvious that we do this, right? Somehow, just like we used to not know how people, humans walked or saw, somehow we have experiences where we're acting in a certain way. And then we have this realization, I've been * ****. That was bad. I thought I was doing good, but in retrospect, I was doing wrong. What's, and it's not like random, like people have the same, actually, there's like a bunch of classic patterns of people people having that realization. It's like a thing that happens over and over again. So it's not random. It's like a predictable series of events that look a lot like learning where you change your behavior and often the impact of your behavior in the future is more pro-social and that you are better off for doing it. And like, so I'm a moral, I'm saying I'm taking a very strong moral realist position. There is such a thing as morality. We really do learn it. really does matter. And organic alignment and that it's not something you finish. In fact, one of the key things that, one of the key moral mistakes is this belief, I know morality. I know it's right. I know it's wrong. I don't need to learn anything. No one has anything to teach me about morality. That's like one of the main, the main arrogant, that's arrogant. And that's one of the main moral things you can do that's dangerous. And so what do we, when we talk about organic alignment, organic alignment is an aligning an AI that is capable of doing the thing that humans can do. he main moral things you can do that's dangerous. And so what do we, when we talk about organic alignment, organic alignment is an aligning an AI that is capable of doing the thing that humans can do. And to some degree, like I think animals can do at some level, although humans are much better at it, of the learning of how to be a good family member, a good teammate, a good member of society, a good member of all sentient beings, I guess, how to be a part of something bigger than yourself in a way that is healthy for the whole rather than unhealthy. And Softmax is dedicated to researching this. And I think we've made some really interesting progress, but like the main message, I go on podcasts like this to spread, the main thing that I hope Softmax accomplishes above and beyond anything else is like to focus people on this as the question. Like this is the thing you have to figure out. If you can't figure out how to build, how to raise a child who cares about the people around them, if you have a child that only follows the rules, that's not a moral person that you've raised. You've raised a dangerous person, actually, who will probably do great harm following the rules. And if you make an AI that's good at following your chain of command and good at following your, whatever rules you came up with for what morality is and what good behavior is, that's also going to be very dangerous. And so that is, that's what, and so that we should, that's the bar, that's what we should be working on. And that's what everyone should be committed to like figuring out. And if someone beats us to the punch, great. I mean, I don't think they will, because I'm like really bullish on our approach. I think the team's amazing. But like, this is a, it's maybe, it's the first time I've run a company where truly I can say with a whole heart, if someone beats us, thank God. Like, I hope somebody figures it out.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.

Search evidence