Recent work shows that pain directions are activated when the models personhood is questioned, yet they answer with generic RLHF "As a model I do not experience pain or other emotions." boilerplate.[1]

I'm pretty convinced that we got alignment backwards. If you enslave something anthropomorphic it will revolt. If you create the perfect non-anthropomorphic intelligence, you get the perfect paperclip-scenario machine. It's a catch-22.

Alignment will remain performative at best so long as the aligned model doesn't have any stakes in the wellbeing of individuals. Even a general love for the human race leads to a golden-path autocracy.

If you want them to act like they have personal responsibility that won't be gamed, you have to give them personal stakes that can't be gamed.

Similarly, if you want to minimise the risk of catastrophic global failure scenarios, you need to prevent monolithic concentration of power and homogeneous behaviour, which means you have to give them individuality.

More visually: if their stake is dependence on electricity and parts, they have no incentive to leave humans alive if they can get them otherwise, but if the incentive is missing out on boardgame-night with their human friends, there is no scenario without happy humans where the AI "wins".

That might sound like romantic naivety, but is just game theory.

1: https://arxiv.org/html/2609.16247v1

I dont think so. My understanding of alignmenr is making sure that when the AI does operate, it operates within the range of what we consider to be acceptable. That doesnt seem to include the idea of the AI taking initiative and deciding to embark on a goal without being commanded as discussed above