“Should we align AI with maternal instinct?” by Priyanka Bharadwaj

Epistemic status: Philosophical argument. I'm critiquing Hinton's maternal instinct metaphor and proposing relationship-building as a better framework for thinking about alignment. This is about shifting conceptual foundations, not technical implementations.

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Geoffery Hinton recently argued that since AI will become more intelligent than humans, traditional dominance-submission models won't work for alignment. Instead, he suggests we might try building "maternal instincts" into AI systems, so they develop genuine compassion and care for humans. He offers the mother-baby relationship as the only example we have of a more intelligent being "controlled" by a less intelligent one.

I don't buy this - for starters, it is not clear that mothers are always more intelligent than their babies, and it is also not clear that it is always the babies that control their mothers. And I'm just scratching the surface here.

Most AI alignment discourse still revolves around control mechanisms, oversight protocols, and [...]

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First published:

September 1st, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/C6oQaSXmTtqNxh9Ad/should-we-align-ai-with-maternal-instinct

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.