AI Alignment Is Neither Solvable nor Sufficient

arXiv:2611.13167v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Humans and AI systems increasingly act within the same social and economic environments. Alignment, the goal of ensuring that AI systems act in accordance with human values, is widely regarded as a central challenge for ensuring that AI benefits society while avoiding harm. We argue that this endeavor is misguided. First, alignment is not well defined, as it presumes a sufficiently stable and identifiable set of human intentions or values. Second, where a concrete notion of alignment can be specified, it is not solvable. Third, where alignment appears solvable, solving it would not necessarily mitigate the negative consequences of AI.