korrents

What Helen Toner thinks about AI alignment

@helen-toner · 12 positions · 0 changes of mind

Director of strategy at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology and a former member of OpenAI's board. Writes Rising Tide, on how AI actually progresses and what policy can do about it.

Helen Toner did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

7 dated positions, 2025, in their own words. Our reading of what Helen Toner has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingNonproliferation is the wrong frame for AI misuse; the workable strategy is to use the gap before a capability spreads to build defences against it.

    Their wordsWe should think of the gap between frontier models and proliferated models as an adaptation buffer: a limited time window when we know what bad actors will soon be able to use AI for, which gives us a chance to implement defensive measures that increase society’s resilience to the danger.

    ↗Nonproliferation is the wrong approach to AI misusehelentoner.substack.com 2nd of 5 in this piece

  3. Our readingAdapting over time is a workable answer to humans misusing AI and no answer at all to losing control of systems smarter than us.

    Their wordsBut we do not have experience with the kinds of problems we’ll face if we build machines that are smarter and more capable than us, so I feel much less sanguine that an adaptation-based strategy will help us there.

    ↗Nonproliferation is the wrong approach to AI misusehelentoner.substack.com 4th of 5 in this piece

  5. Our readingAdvocates who argue for restricting AI on misuse grounds while privately fearing takeover end up less credible than if they said what they meant.

    Their wordsBy trying to use misuse as a fig leaf for their real concerns, they end up sounding much less credible than if they just tried to argue for what they actually meant.

    ↗Nonproliferation is the wrong approach to AI misusehelentoner.substack.com 5th of 5 in this piece

  6. 2 days earlier

  7. Our readingThe core of the alignment problem is steerability — whether an AI can be reliably steered anywhere at all — which is a different question from whose values it is steered towards.

    Their wordsI see this as a totally fair question that totally misses the point of what “alignment” was trying to refer to: whether we’d be able to reliably steer advanced systems towards anything at all.

    ↗The core challenge of AI alignment is “steerability”helentoner.substack.com 1st of 2 in this piece

  9. Our readingNobody has built a model that resists targeted jailbreaking, so the ability of AI companies to steer their own models is still limited.

    Their wordsBut no one has (yet) been able to develop a model that is resistant to targeted “jailbreaking” that evades these restrictions.

    ↗The core challenge of AI alignment is “steerability”helentoner.substack.com 2nd of 2 in this piece

  10. 2 days earlier

  11. Our readingDismissing human-level AI as science fiction is now unserious, because even the sceptical experts put it within a decade or two.

    Their wordsDismissing discussion of AGI, human-level AI, transformative AI, superintelligence, etc. as “science fiction” should be seen as a sign of total unseriousness.

    ↗"Long" timelines to advanced AI have gotten crazy shorthelentoner.substack.com 1st of 3 in this piece

    AGI

  13. Our readingAdvanced AI is close enough that the preparations which take years have to be started now, whichever end of the expert range you believe.

    Their wordsWe need to leap into action on many of the same things that could help if it does turn out that we only have a few years.

    ↗"Long" timelines to advanced AI have gotten crazy shorthelentoner.substack.com 3rd of 3 in this piece