Our approach to alignment research
OpenAI's bet: Build one aligned superintelligence, solve alignment forever.
Why it matters
OpenAI publicly outlines its philosophical stance on AI alignment—positioning recursive self-improvement through human feedback as the path to solving alignment at scale. This shapes how the industry thinks about safety governance and competitive strategy around alignment.
The key facts
9 to knowFocus on learning from human feedback as core alignment mechanism
Goal of building 'sufficiently aligned' system to solve downstream alignment problems
Published August 2022 (pre-GPT-4, foundational strategic positioning)
Recursive alignment approach: aligned AI helping evaluate AI
Focus on human feedback learning mechanisms
Strategy centers on building 'sufficiently aligned' systems first
Recursive approach: aligned AI as tool to solve other alignment problems
Published August 2022 (pre-GPT-4 era, foundational safety positioning)
Public policy/governance statement, not a leaked memo or internal quote
Go to the source
OpenAI Blogopenai.com
Publisher excerpt: We are improving our AI systems’ ability to learn from human feedback and to assist humans at evaluating AI. Our goal is to build a sufficiently aligned AI system that can help us solve all other alignment problems.