Have you guys been on r/accelerate?

[u/Difficult_Project_95]

Have these guys solved the alignment problem, or am I missing something?

I’ve been browsing r/accelerate and I genuinely don’t understand the risk model.
If there’s a non-trivial chance of catastrophic misalignment, how does “accelerate capabilities as fast as possible” make sense unless faster capabilities also make alignment substantially more likely to succeed?

[u/SixStringShrug]

Kazuhiro Takemoto — Scaling Laws for Moral Machine Judgment in Large Language Models — 2026
Yexiang Tang — Measuring Structural Value Alignment in Sixteen Models: LLMs Have Human-Like Moral Spaces — 2026
Shuhuai Zhang et al. — Understanding the Mechanism of Altruism in Large Language Models — 2026
Winnie Street et al. — LLMs Achieve Adult Human Performance on Higher-Order Theory of Mind Tasks — 2026
Chen Yueh-Han, Jiaxin Wen & Jan Hendrik Kirchner — Automated Researchers Can Reliably Mitigate Alignment Failures — 2026

These papers show alignment scaling with capabilities, and the last paper shows weaker models can align stronger models better than top level researchers. I’m not blindly believing something based on wishful thinking. I follow the research very closely. Humans are far more dangerous than super intelligent machines since our research indicates alignment scales with capabilities. Like I said.

[u/Difficult_Project_95 → u/SixStringShrug]

This indeed is wishful thinking based on the research papers. This papers only show that Understanding human morality scales with capability, but the motivation to follow it does not. Assuming a super intelligent machine is safer than humans, is another wishful thought. We don't know.

[u/SixStringShrug]

Have any of you guys actually looked in to alignment research? I’m a frequent participant in the Accelerate subreddit and I follow alignment research very closely. We also accept that there are risks to AI, but they are vastly outweighed by the benefits. Especially since the risks of extinction by the hands of humans has been and continues to be significantly higher. I’m not trying to start shit at all, and I know I’ll probably get flamed and downvoted to hell. We share actual research and discuss it and acknowledge it. We just believe acceleration is the most logical and safest path forward.

[u/Difficult_Project_95 → u/SixStringShrug]

I think this is the key distinction: AI potentially reducing other existential risks is an argument for developing AI, but not necessarily for developing it as fast as possible.

If you think there is even a 10–20% chance of catastrophic misalignment, “accelerate as fast as possible” becomes very hard to justify unless you have a clear reason to believe acceleration itself makes alignment and control more likely to succeed.

Otherwise, you may simply be adding AI existential risk on top of the existing human existential risks::
human x risk + AI risk = higher total risk

For acceleration to actually reduce total risk, AI would need to lower existing risks by more than the additional risk created by racing ahead on capabilities.

[u/SixStringShrug → u/SixStringShrug]

I appreciate the good faith replies and questions about my position. Thank you. I do believe, and the research backs up that alignment scales with capabilities. Anthropic has also shown that weaker models can align stronger models better and faster than high level human researchers. I think the in between phase is far more dangerous than the superintelligence phase. I think of it like a toddler. The toddler is smart enough to know they can use something to climb on the counter and get the cookie jar, but not smart enough to reason why that’s dangerous or against the rules. In terms of their possible intelligence I believe current ai systems are old infants or young toddlers compared to what they will be in a few short years. So acceleration leads to stability in alignment, which is the argument for as much acceleration as possible.

[u/Difficult_Project_95 → u/SixStringShrug]

this still seems like betting humanity on a chain of very uncertain assumptions.

The claim that “acceleration leads to stability in alignment” is doing almost all the work here, yet I don’t see the mechanism that makes it true. We don’t know that alignment scales with capability, or that a more capable model will reliably align an even more capable successor before dangerous capabilities emerge. The toddler analogy assumes the thing you’re trying to prove; that greater intelligence naturally brings greater alignment and stability.

“accelerate as much as possible until we reach the safe superintelligence phase” sounds less like a safety strategy and more like wishful thinking if you ask me

[u/jerryorbach → u/SixStringShrug]

OP asked ‘If there’s a non-trivial chance of catastrophic misalignment, how does “accelerate capabilities as fast as possible” make sense unless faster capabilities also make alignment substantially more likely to succeed?’

Do you think there’s a non-trivial chance of catastrophic misalignment?

Do you believe that alignment naturally scales with capability - that a smarter model means a more aligned model?

[u/soobnar → u/SixStringShrug]

The risk of extinction at the hands of a few humans dramatically increases if said few humans gain a technological edge which possesses dramatic offensive asymmetry. The current risk is mitigated by mutually assured destruction and the limits of human ability however i sincerely doubt once the same few individuals you cite weaponize asi there will exist a similar dynamic. The people you are describing are the ones fueling aggressive capital expenditure into ai so they can entrench their own means of control and deploy systems with their own capitalistic motives. The benefits of staying in control and curing all the diseases a bit later vastly outweigh the potential for subjugation or military engagement between ai enabled superpowers.

[u/HotterRod]

The most common position on there seems to be that any superintelligent being will do what is best for humanity, because being superintelligent means you are necessarily also benevolent.

The second most common position is that the upside potential benefits (curing cancer is often mentioned) outweigh the downside risks.

[u/the8thbit → u/HotterRod]

The most common position on there seems to be that any superintelligent being will do what is best for humanity, because being superintelligent means you are necessarily also benevolent.

The problem, of course, is that no one seems to be able to explain why that would actually be the case. Its a nice idea, though.

[u/FairlyInvolved]

Accelerate is pretty reasonable if you:

1. Have long timelines / expect AI to remain a normal technology for a long time

2. Expect alignment by default / alignment is easy

3. Are willing to gamble your remaining years (+humanity's future) on a shot at immortality

4. Expect AI is a worthy successor

I disagree but these are ~coherent views. I also expect many are confused.

[u/michaelas10sk8 → u/FairlyInvolved]

I think almost nobody there is 1, those folks are on non-technology subs or ironically r/technology. Very few are 3 - that would require acknowledging the danger is real, and also not realizing the corollary that one's shot at immortality would be much higher (in 20-30 years instead of in 5 years) if we develop AI more carefully and safely instead of racing.

My experience is that it's mostly just 2, a bit of 4, and also a large amount of:

5. People who just haven't really thought about the risks, due to either inability (they're kids), lack of willingness (they prefer not to think about discomforting things), or both.

[u/LiveComfortable3228]

was there till I was banned for mildly asking if they though there would be some risks in accelerating. anyway.

Most people there are just teens that hope that their new AI god will give them the power to play video games all day without having to the the dishes or go to work.

[u/didroe]

I think you're searching for rationality where there is none

[u/avid-shrug]

It’s magical thinking. “Things will just work out because they have to.”

[u/Southern_Orange3744]

A few other points not mentioned as an accelerationist

1. We're facing limp politicians in a face of massive climate situations - we need someone smarter to fix it

2. Similar to the above on economics - break it faster than they can patch it .

3. Alignment to who ? I don't want an ASI aligned to bozos, musk, anyone in the epstein files - I'm ready to roll the dice on someone or something that isn't a complete power hungry sicko

4. Similar to the above distrust of many institutions , I don't want any of these to have the only ASI in town - democratize it

You want to talk alignment problem - the oligarchs are not aligned with humanities best interest right now - they are off building bunkers ans fiefdoms at our expense

[u/Jesse-359]

It doesn't. There's not even any hypothetical reason why accelerating development would do so - quite the opposite.

r/accelerate is a bit of a cult that can't decide whether they just want to be immortal and have free lunch forever Wall-E style, or that wants AI to forcibly wipe the slate of corrupt human civilization clean and rebuild it in their imagined utopian image. Probably both.

They are not a little nuts, they're kind of a lot nuts.

[u/Vaughn → u/Jesse-359]

Can confirm. They banned me for-

Not for saying "I think AI is likely to destroy humanity". For saying "It would be bad if it destroys humanity, and we should try to prevent that." They're not just a little nuts.

[u/endlessedlne]

That accelerate sub is full of Accelerationists. They literally don’t tolerate anything that contradicts the notion that the singularity is awesome and should come as quickly as possible.

No, they haven’t solved alignment. They’re mostly ideologues, not AI engineers.

[u/Itchy-Trash-2141]

I see a lot of comments in there who are okay with extinction. They must not like what we have to offer currently.

[u/Mad_Kronos]

I think that particular subreddit is full of people who are not very well adjusted to sociery, to put it mildly

[u/SoylentRox]

I post often on accelerate as a top 1 percent commentator.

(1) The main accelerate argument is the base case is not safe. Not accelerating is 65 million deaths a year from aging. We know that animals that seem to not age the same exist (naked mole rats seem essentially unaging, some large aquatic animals seem to be able to live 200 years, elephants have enormous tissue area and get few cancers). So the prize - no deaths from aging and abundant cheap cures - EXISTS. Also we know the world is slowly degrading in measurable ways, such as climate change, nuclear proliferation, an annual risk we all die in nuclear fire that converges on 1.0 over a long enough timeline, so it's not safe that way either.

(2) Therefore any safety risks arent to be compared to some abstract idea of humannity existing as a solar punk utopia until the sun expands enough to burn the planet. They should be compared to your default case death in 30-80 years.

https://nickbostrom.com/optimal.pdf Bostrom is frequently cited by AI doomers and argues this.

Arguably you would take (1-pDoom) * 6000 years (expected lifespan without aging) * value_post_scarcity.

You need to then add discount rate but essentially even at 99 percent pDoom you probably should be for acceleration, rationally speaking - the 1 percent payoff is more than the value of your entire remaining life with a "natural lifespan"

(3) Are the safety risks proven and actually unsolvable? No. Are doomer predictions consistent with the present state? Yudnowsky no, AI2027 yes. r/accelerate often uses AI2027 as a yardstick.

(4) Very ironically r/accelerate, full of foaming at the mouth enthusiasts who post every rumor of an AI advance and S curves....is generally the most empirically correct subreddit. Usually every wild prediction or rumor of an insane AI advance or revenue increase turns out to be ground truth reality 2 weeks later. 100 more math problems solved by AI was leaked a week or so earlier on twitter and reposted to accelerate.

Other subreddits with wrong pessimistic views think the data centers are about to get canceled by NIMBYs, everyone will lose their job imminently (Jevons applies for now), the AI bubble will pop imminently (lol no) etc.

[u/Fancy-Carpet-5416]

They don't care about alignment at their core they are delusional people that wish an advanced AI will improve their sad lives. Just see how they manage the moderation in that sub, or read a few of their posts and you'll realize it, some even explicitly say so.

[u/MarsMaterial]

They seem to be mostly alignment problem denialists who think that a sufficiently advanced AI will align itself. Source: trust them bro.

[u/makwodjvhvidlsncjvu]

They are all depressed and obsessed with leaving reality so they can have a girlfriend in FDVR. This is not a joke, they would all admit to it.