Alignment
Level 2
How well an AI system's behaviour matches what people actually intend.
Term 5 of 6 in Safety and privacy
In plain language
Alignment covers the gap between the instruction given and the outcome wanted. A model can follow the letter of a request and still do something unhelpful or harmful.
Think of it like this
A wish granted too literally.
Why it matters
Alignment is why "just tell the AI what you want" is harder than it sounds, at the scale of a product or a society.
Next terms in Safety and privacy
- BiasA model systematically favouring or disadvantaging certain people or outcomes.
- Personally identifiable informationAny information that can be traced back to a specific person.
- Data retentionHow long a service keeps what you send it, and what it does with it.
- Prompt injectionHiding instructions inside content so a model obeys the attacker instead of you.