Foundational Moral Values for AI Alignment

TL;DR

This paper proposes five foundational moral values derived from philosophy—survival, sustainability, society, education, and truth—as a robust framework to guide AI alignment efforts and address associated threats and opportunities.

Contribution

It introduces a philosophically grounded set of core values to improve the clarity and robustness of AI alignment targets.

Findings

Provides a structured framework for AI alignment based on moral philosophy.

Highlights how AI systems can threaten or support these core values.

Offers a basis for future technical and ethical AI development.

Abstract

Solving the AI alignment problem requires having clear, defensible values towards which AI systems can align. Currently, targets for alignment remain underspecified and do not seem to be built from a philosophically robust structure. We begin the discussion of this problem by presenting five core, foundational values, drawn from moral philosophy and built on the requisites for human existence: survival, sustainable intergenerational existence, society, education, and truth. We show that these values not only provide a clearer direction for technical alignment work, but also serve as a framework to highlight threats and opportunities from AI systems to both obtain and sustain these values.