PROPOSALS AND DEBATE
FOR INSTITUTIONS IN A WORLD WITH POWERFUL AI
NO. 2 proposal
Value Drift in Institutions
Joe Edelman 
Joe Edelman CO-FOUNDER, MEANING ALIGNMENT INSTITUTE Philosopher and co-founder of the Meaning Alignment Institute, working on aligning AI, markets, and democracies with what people value. Previously co-founded the Center for Humane Technology and invented the meaning-based metrics used at CouchSurfing, Facebook, and Apple.
Institutions drift from their values not through ideology but through three mechanisms — inarticulacy, self-scoring, and capture — and are increasingly trapped by a fourth: value substitution loops that make reversal impossible.
8 minute read
NO. 3 response
Freedom, Fairness, and Fidelity
Joe Edelman Joe Edelman CO-FOUNDER, MEANING ALIGNMENT INSTITUTE Philosopher and co-founder of the Meaning Alignment Institute, working on aligning AI, markets, and democracies with what people value. Previously co-founded the Center for Humane Technology and invented the meaning-based metrics used at CouchSurfing, Facebook, and Apple.
Taking up the diagnosis in Value Drift in Institutions: the public values of freedom and fairness cannot litigate social media's value drift, democratic failure, or AI-driven job displacement. A proposal for a third public value — fidelity — and the institutions it would require.
27 minute read
NO. 4 proposal
Coasean Compression
Oliver Klingefjord 
Oliver Klingefjord CO-FOUNDER, MEANING ALIGNMENT INSTITUTE Researcher and co-founder of the Meaning Alignment Institute, working on full-stack alignment of AI and institutions with human values. Previously co-founded Potential.app and was technical lead at the AI Objectives Institute.
Markets coordinate brilliantly for laptops and logistics, and fail at love, friendship, and belonging. A diagnosis of why markets at scale substitute thin proxies for the deeper wants they were meant to serve.
8 minute read
NO. 5 response
The Buyer's Compression
Ryan Lowe 
Ryan Lowe RESEARCHER, MEANING ALIGNMENT INSTITUTE Researcher at the Meaning Alignment Institute working on full-stack alignment. Previously an alignment researcher at OpenAI, where he co-led the InstructGPT work that pioneered RLHF for large language models.
The compression doesn't only happen on the supply side — it happens inside the buyer. An amendment to Coasean Compression: the four frictions live partly in the world and partly in us.
3 minute read
NO. 6 response
Dummy 2
Joe Edelman Joe Edelman CO-FOUNDER, MEANING ALIGNMENT INSTITUTE Philosopher and co-founder of the Meaning Alignment Institute, working on aligning AI, markets, and democracies with what people value. Previously co-founded the Center for Humane Technology and invented the meaning-based metrics used at CouchSurfing, Facebook, and Apple.
Taking up the diagnosis in Value Drift in Institutions: the public values of freedom and fairness cannot litigate social media's value drift, democratic failure, or AI-driven job displacement. A proposal for a third public value — fidelity — and the institutions it would require.
27 minute read
NO. 7 response
Dummy 1
Joe Edelman Joe Edelman CO-FOUNDER, MEANING ALIGNMENT INSTITUTE Philosopher and co-founder of the Meaning Alignment Institute, working on aligning AI, markets, and democracies with what people value. Previously co-founded the Center for Humane Technology and invented the meaning-based metrics used at CouchSurfing, Facebook, and Apple.
Taking up the diagnosis in Value Drift in Institutions: the public values of freedom and fairness cannot litigate social media's value drift, democratic failure, or AI-driven job displacement. A proposal for a third public value — fidelity — and the institutions it would require.
27 minute read