Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Inner alignment

Inner alignment

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The article does not currently cite reliable sources. Current citations include the forums "LessWrong" and "AI Alignment Forum", and blog articles on "AISafety.info", Medium, and LinkedIn. A web search turned up the following primary source articles:

I am recommending this article for deletion since I could find no references to this concept in reliable secondary sources. Elestrophe (talk) 01:40, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: This concept seems to exist and be a confounding factor in artificial intelligence spaces, and therefore has some value to the overall encyclopedia. Because AI is advancing at such a rate, and because such advancements raise challenges faster than scientific study of those challenges can be adequately conducted, I would argue that there is some limited room for article creation before full adequate sourcing exists. There is a fine line between what I am talking about and a violation of WP:CRYSTALBALL and WP:NOR; but I would raise that it is better to have an article in this case than not have an article. Foxtrot620 (talk) 18:23, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Creating an article "before full adequate sourcing exists" is a violation of the No Original Research policy, full stop. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 00:20, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 02:27, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - this is a notable concept. I just added a reference to the article from Scientific Reports. A Google Scholar search for "inner alignment" artificial intelligence turns up 300+ results. Many are preprints but there remain many peer-reviewed papers and books. Books, too. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 20:43, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Scientific Reports is not a good journal. It's the cash-grab of the Nature company. The majority of Wikipedia's own article about it is the "Controversies" section, for goodness sake. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 00:12, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The version has been improved and the concept itself is notable and increasingly discussed in the academic literature. The notion of “inner alignment” is widely cited in alignment research and has been already formalized. While the original discussions emerged on platforms like the AI Alignment Forum and LessWrong, the term has since migrated into peer-reviewed academic publications. Southernhemisphere (talk) 23:15, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete In the absence of actual serious literature, i.e., multiple reliably-published articles that cover the topic in depth, this is just an advertisement for an ideology. The current sourcing is dreadful, running the gamut from LessWrong to LinkedIn, and a search for better options did not turn up nearly enough to indicate that this needs an article rather than, at most, a sentence somewhere else. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 00:17, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
LessWrong and LinkedIn referenced texts were deleted. While the article requires further refinement, the topic remains highly relevant. Southernhemisphere (talk) 05:27, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, now remove "aisafety.info" (a primary, non-independent source with no editorial standards that can be discerned). And "Bluedot Impact" (likewise). And the blog post about a podcast episode on Medium, which fails every test one could want for a source good enough to build an encyclopedia article upon. What's left? Not much. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 06:42, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Deleting by what is in the article today vs what is out there is not how it works. Poorly or incompletely written is not grounds to delete. Google this: "Inner alignment" artificial intelligence. Lots of stuff if we but look: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. Exists and is notable, and newer sciences, so you have to dig more. -- Very Polite Person (talk) 03:50, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The first link is to the arXiv preprint version of a conference proceedings paper in a conference with unknown standards. The lead author was at OpenAI, which means that the paper has to be judged for the possibility of criti-hype, and in any event, should be regarded as primary and not independent. The second is a page of search results from a search engine that does not screen for peer review and even includes a self-published book. The third is in Scientific Reports, which via this essay I learned has published crackpot physics. The fifth is a thesis, which is generally not a good kind of source to use. In short, there is much less here than meets the eye. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 06:38, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I will note that a doctoral thesis is an allowable reliable source. However hinging an article like this on a single source is not appropriate. This is why I proposed draftification. This topic could very well be one that generates reliable sources but it's clearly not there yet. Simonm223 (talk) 13:34, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The only source that looks halfway like credible computer science is a wildly speculative pre-print from 2024 sponsored by Google and Microsoft. The article looks like covert advertising for AIsafety.info. Jujodon (talk) 10:14, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Draftify as WP:TOOSOON. If reliable academic sources come forward then this article then that's fine but preprints and blogs are not reliable sources. Simonm223 (talk) 13:31, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or draftify. Is there a single RS for this? Perhaps we could move the article to arXiv too, or maybe viXra - David Gerard (talk) 18:50, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Inner alignment is a notable and emerging concept in AI safety, now cited in peer-reviewed sources such as Scientific Reports (Melo et al., 2025) and PRAI 2024 (Li et al.). While the article began with less formal sources, newer academic literature confirms its relevance. Per WP:GNG, the topic has significant coverage in reliable sources. Improvements are ongoing, and deletion would be premature for a concept gaining scholarly traction. Sebasargent (talk) 19:05, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- "emerging concept" places it squarely as WP:TOOSOON - David Gerard (talk) 23:54, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  Inner alignment is an urgent topic because it addresses a core safety challenge in the development of powerful AI systems, especially those based on LLMs or other ML techniques. Southernhemisphere (talk) 00:04, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have just removed the many paragraphs cited solely to blog posts, arXiv preprints, Medium posts, some guy's website, or nothing at all. This is now a three-paragraph article with two cites. Is that really all there is to this? Nothing else in a solid RS? - David Gerard (talk) 00:03, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]