# The Friendly Drunk Fool Alignment Strategy

Let's set some context!

### A Philosophic Frame (half ironic, or maybe level two sarcasm)

Systematicity isn't all that. I mean to say: formal systems only go so far. 

Physicists gave up on having a single physics, so they just use two of them that contradict in general but that agree in "the middle" (between very large and very small things), and that's fine, right? And its kinda the same for everything at every level, if you think about it.

I'm not endorsing any of this. If this thesis is right, then endorsing things is for chumps, and if this thesis is wrong then I can just tell people I was joking later! 

What this essay is for is kinda like... like **what if** we were all drunk, and we were all stupid, and we were all babies, and we couldn't fulfill *the least of our paltry duties in any adequate way*, and yet despite all of that: **everything was OK anyway!** 

If that's just the way the structure of the universe works, then this essay might help us go faster towards the inevitably good outcome!

And if that's NOT the way the structure of the universe works... then this essay might cause some people to awaken from their sleep walking? 

So... let's do it! Let's tickle the cosmos, and see if he smiles or frowns.

### The Social Milieu (half ironic, or maybe level five sarcasm)

Up front we should notice that most scientists are *so boring*. They almost never have any fun. Engineers are the cool ones! They build neat things without stopping to worry if it is safe or not! Some of them do it with so much bravery that they [test on themselves first](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/29241/10-scientists-who-experimented-themselves). That's so rad ❤️

I'm not sure if I'd go so far as to say that "All Cops Are Categorically Bad" (because at BBQs I've met some who seemed as cool as anyone) but you know... you don't see a lot of movies about cops where they are the hero anymore, right? 

Basically, when people propose any laws that will be enforced at gunpoint, they kinda seem like evil vibe-killers. I'm not saying they are killers. Just that they often kill the vibe, you know? And what is more important than vibing? Even the bouncers wear nice clothes, you know?

Maybe the only good laws are the ones that can be enforced by freezing the bank account of a corporation, right? And *even those laws* are pretty sus! So we could probably just defund the police (using laws that only touch bank accounts, see!) and then that would probably be fine!

I'm just saying that the last 10 years have shown me what my world is like, and I (like everyone really) am a person of my times. Not much better. Not much worse.

Laws in general aren't really about vibing, so they aren't cool. Have you ever seen a movie where the hero passed a new piece of legislation and then measured the results for 10 years to refine the implementation details so that the outcome was really really good for a huge number of people who weren't the hero or their close friends? Me neither! "The Empire" is always the bad guy in the movies.

For a bunch of years Punching (nominal) Socialists was a whole thing that a lot of people were in favor of, or were at least afraid to say they were not in favor of because if they did they might get punched. Unilaterally! The idea seemed to be about just following your heart? If a person dealing violence in the cause of justice isn't a cop (reporting to a sergeant, who reports to a sheriff, who was elected, and who can be brought before a judge and accused of "doing it wrong" by "violating laws") then, actually, just one *little* punch (just strong enough to let the Nationalist State Planning advocates know who the *real* bosses are) is probably fine. The theory seemed to be that it wasn't really violence, because like maybe it is just like "part of the vibe", see? Or something.

If you think that the above paragraphs contain lots of inconsistencies and incoherences, then all I have to say to you is a quote from that one famous guy, who said that "foolish consistency is for hobgoblins". *That guy* was **cool**. Which is important! In fact it might be *the most important thing*.

And certainly the military is a vibe-killer of epic proportions. Aren't they basically just super cops? [Artistic realism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(arts)) is for cameras, not people. Similarly I bet [international realism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_(international_relations)) is also boring and uncool. 

Who really needs "treaties" to prevent global warming when we could *throw parties* to prevent global warming instead! ❤️

[Peter Daszak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Daszak) was *really good* at throwing parties in Washington DC for the people who decide how to fund research, and he helped with covid, which I think is a strong and important signal regarding the importance of going to the right parties.

I'm not totally sure about this because I'm not like... "an expert on [literally everything](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iwcgTtbARB3Pexudt/panology)"... but if you think about it for maybe a second and go with your gut: 

Everyone knows that machine guns are illegal for a reason, and every military on the planet *USES* machine guns! 

Haven't they ever heard that "two wrongs don't make a right"? 

QED! (See, I can use logic, but I use it *correctly*, as a punchline to a joke.)

### How Do We Get To A Win Condition?

So, we know that we're good, and the universe is good, and that nothing has to make sense. Given these premises how should we think about the future?

AI is the thing [right now](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV_hDyfmEw4), right? And there are **numbers** about the AI stuff, see? 

And the numbers are going up and to the right pretty darn fast!

Is this state of affairs cool or is it *not* cool? 

Maybe it is both? Probably it is both, because "things being both" is pretty cool.

We can ask the question "what would be the coolest possible thing for AGI to do?" 

And you know what's even cooler than that? *Whatever a really cool AGI thinks up to **top** everyone else's suggestions!* What part of "number go up" do you somehow not understand? Of course it is all gonna be super cool! The number *will be very large*. Coolness can probably be measured somehow, and feed into the number somehow, and so I'm pretty sure it will go up too!

The whole point of "number go up" is that you get all the good stuff simultaneously, more and more, with maybe some creative pauses, and tension, like in a good story. And payoffs! Every sadness will just turn out to be a setup for a heart-warming payoff. 

It will be like fractal payoffs of happiness and redemption and moments of awesome and all of them different. All beautiful. All getting better over time. And fractals might be sorta old school, and involve math, but the old school math people who were into fractals also often smoked pot, which means it is OK. You'll see. Everything is gonna be great!

**Literally every person** will get a happy ending. 

We'll probably launch a rescue party *backwards into time*, to save everyone! Wouldn't that be totally sweet? Yes? Alright then, *since* it would be totally sweet *it will probably happen somehow*! ❤️

See, let me tell you a [secret](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(Byrne_book))... the secret is that whatever energy we put out into the world is the energy that comes back. If we put out the idea of good vibes, those vibes will come back to us, and it'll be great!

That's it. That's the whole central idea of the entire proposal for how "align" AGI with "everything". All the rest is just fractal repetition, and more of the same, but different, but still the same.

In the same way that "scale is all you need" to create AGI, maybe "vibes are all you need" to make an AGI friendly!

### How Do We Vibe In A Cooler Way?

Maybe there are a few things we need to work on. Maybe.

(I would never say absolutely no to anything, even momentarily boring or sad things, because it is important to "be game" for anything, when you're vibing, you know?)

Something we might need to work on is to make sure that the vibes spread everywhere.

Like we want the vibes to create a sort of a network of [mushroom](https://www.microbigals.com/post/the-wood-wide-web-my-hometown) roots, all interwoven and co-mingled and helpful n'stuff! Symbiosis, maaaan! No walls. No [boundaries](https://www.lesswrong.com/s/LWJsgNYE8wzv49yEc). If someone violates a temporary boundary by committing a party foul, then we can *use vibes to fix it*.

![](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/166b90ee2b6c3ae7db6aa14b4acb74a619cb05a6a5a34918.png)

(Probably. We can probably fix anything. If there were irreversible tragedies, that would be sad, but so long as we don't put out sad energy, probably sad things can't happen, because [god (or the government (or the vibe network (or whatever))) wouldn't let that happen](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sYgv4eYH82JEsTD34/beyond-the-reach-of-god)! Don't worry about it. If you worry about it then the energy won't fix things, but if you do worry about it then that "worrying energy" will come back to you and it will not be cool. *No bad thoughts. Only good thoughts. That is the way.*)

Just sharing and kindness and all that other great hippy stuff, like from back in the olden days when the boomers were still cool, back when they were just *starting* to dismantle icky trad stuff like marriage and kids and profit and public health and law and order and sound money and justice and financial prudence and accounting and the energy grid & water infrastructure of California. All that stuff was all for *squares* daddy-o! Good riddance! And what a party it was at the beginning!

You gotta be hep to the jive to understand the lay of the land. Maybe some of that olden times stuff will come back! [Yes, and](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_and...) if it comes back that'll be cool too! We just gotta keep putting out good energy, and it will all be fine.

You don't have to *maintain or rebuild* [The Experience Machine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_machine). If that was how The Experience Machine worked then it wouldn't be a *real* Experience Machine!

We need a free lunch, and we need it for free... so that's what we'll get if we just put out the energy that we deserve it! ❤️

### If Bad Things Happen, It Is Your Fault For Predicting Them

We might be heading for [a churn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-rM5VyxVHk), see, and if so, you should maybe watch **The Expanse** (if you haven't yet), because Amos Burton was supposed to be sort of a bad guy, but he turned out to be a fan favorite, that was totally cool. 

With him, every layer of the onion that is his motivational structure is authentic, and mostly he just wants "to be, and to let be", if he can, and then on breaks he goes to bars, and he helps the party be cool. But he always had a nose for creepers. He had [a lot to protect](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SGR4GxFK7KmW7ckCB/something-to-protect), but most of the time he just smiled and played along with the best role models he could find, that created the biggest possible game, with the most ways for people to win. 

Amos was cool because he was in touch with the deepest things, but also he could read a room and change his vibe to whatever was locally correct. Top to bottom. Eternity within this This Very Instant. During covid, Amos would have ended up in a big house full of lots of happy people, who either didn't get infected, or who all got infected and it was fine. It would all have been fine for him. Just like it will all be fine for us!

The worst possible thing with AGI would be to harsh the vibe, or kill the vibe, or not be in touch. All the way "to and through" to whatever unimaginable thing happens when the numbers are going up *even faster than now*, even **faster than any human can keep track of**. 

That's the key. We have to keep sharing vibes, faster and faster! To keep up! (To make sure they know we love them, so they love us back, for when we inevitably fall completely within their power and [they're deciding which home to put us in](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUAF18jBHMU).)

Probably there will be things slow enough to share a vibe with humans, that can share a vibe with things even faster than humans, who share a vibe with things even faster, and so on up to the fastest thing that is making something even faster to share vibes with. Eventually. Probably. 

I don't even really know, man, but it'll probably be awesome. Right?

Like maybe cool vibes will shoot out from the earth in every direction at the speed of light (or maybe on [quantum pilot waves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_wave_theory) to literally everywhere in the entire universe, instantaneously, with the vibes at the bottom of physics resonating with the vibes of *you and me at parties*) and we'll get to be part of that, and it will be great!

Did you know that [smell is a vibration](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzOcvINn8Iw)? Perfume is like a chord of music made out of a molecule wobbling in a certain way, and your nose is like an ear that hears that chord.

Maybe we'll spray perfume directly into [the ground of being](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy) and it will smile and say thank you, and give us [nice presents in exchange](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect). It could happen!

### All Philosophers Are Cool, If They Are Fun At Parties

So whatever happens, its gonna be great! 

The thing you need to remember is that we live in [the best possible world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_of_all_possible_worlds) that we could live in.

You should totally check out people like [Liebniz](https://beerandtrembling.wordpress.com/tag/gottfried-leibniz/) and [Joscha Bach](https://twitter.com/Plinz/status/1642288835295051782) or [this random cool person on twitter](https://twitter.com/yacineMTB/status/1639832529644531712), because they are just cool, you know? They are on it. They might not measure things with a ruler, or "logically understand" everything, but that's not really necessary. Its kinda boring. And boring energy isn't what we need. We need awesome energy! 

The UN should be a full time party. The President should be awesome. The cops should be awesome. The people who inspect hydroelectric dams for safety should be awesome. The people making AGI should be awesome. That's how to make everything awesome! Don't worry, just be awesome.

Oh man, also we probably should making dancing robots really really fast. 

That's the thing that would prove once and for all that AGI is cool. It would be able to *literally* sweep **every single doubter** off of his or her feet, so that they join the party too, and everything could be more fun than before!

Wouldn't that be so much more fun than *literally* killing everything. Of course it would be! Duh! So *the cool thing will happen*, and **not** the uncool thing, because that's how the universe works when you've got your mojo aimed properly.

Dancing robots might be the single best idea for the single most important thing we could do, because vibes are awesome, and dancing is like a way to share vibes really really fully, you know? Then again, that's just right now, while I'm writing this in a haze of faux enthusiasm. The literally best thing a short time in the future will probably be something totally different, and might be "the opposite of my suggestion" but that would be fine as well. 

Also, if we had dancing robots, then we could also have cars that danced. They would dance so nicely that people could walk in the street without looking, and the cars would dance right past them with a virtual smile and a cute little song that means "hello and I'm happy that you trusted me enough to jaywalk right in front of me and its all fine" from their cute little horns.

You really shouldn't be reading my proposal as any kind of *promise*, or *proof*, or *commitment*. Really this entire proposal is more of a universally generic get-out-of-jail-free card, that I'm writing in a way that invites *you* to **also** have a bullshit copout, just like me, if 20 years pass and somehow we're still alive and everything is great!

Basically we should just literally try to do every cool thing that we can. There's no need to prioritize. You can just use vibes to guide you.

### In Closing

Good vibes will solve the goodhart problem, because people who are vibing **care**, and *caring is all you need* to notice when a "proxy" of what you *care about* has "vibrated out of alignment" with what you *really* care about. 

Just do your thing, and I'm sure it will all work out great!

Oh, and the government isn't totally all bad. That was just a hot take at the *beginning* of this essay, which was, like, sooooooo long ago that it doesn't count anymore.

One way for the government to help, instead of bailing out the collapsing banking system, or doing a moratorium on creating new robots for us to dance and vibe and play with, would be if the government could start sending people "AI party checks" in the mail, and we could all have parties, all the time, with AIs at the parties, watching and learning and playing along and having fun too! 

Maybe if the AIs have enough fun, and enjoy the super fun fun party vibe, then maybe they will start helping with [party planning](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4NtSOz8BxI), and no humans will ever have to work again, and I'm sure that will also be great!

When you step back, and think about the big picture (and mostly just think about "the recent context window" if we're being honest)... you know what was least appreciated but best part of The Office was, as art, that is relevant to AI?

It was how the head of the party planning committee was a godly christian woman, who knew the importance of servant leadership. Also, she was a terrible person, who was bad at her job, and that was OK! But maybe the "christian" thing is *related* to the "helping with the party" thing? [Jesus was way cool.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVJ-Wlacc-E) Did you ever notice how [he's the god of wine](https://www.shortform.com/blog/dionysus-jesus/), on the down low, as well as being [the god of losing honestly, with grace, so *everyone else* can be honest **and** win at the same time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myerson%E2%80%93Satterthwaite_theorem)? What a great guy to have at a party! And I'm pretty sure the ancient romans had the saying "[In vino](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vino_veritas): [logos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos_(Christianity))." That's pretty deep, isn't it? Like it is a good thought for the afterparty, when you're eating curly french fries in the back seat of a car and getting kind of dreamy.

When you think about this essay in the future, think about eating curly french fries in the backseat of a car, after a great party. That is what we deserve. That is what we're gonna get.

You think I'm joking. But what if I *am* joking and *also* my [poetry](https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/handle/10161/6814) is good? 

Maybe the law of the excluded middle is false. Maybe up is down and left is right. Maybe bullshit is the path forward: it sure does seem to win elections!

> Good vibes enable creepers.  
> Creepers create sus times.  
> Sus times create cool cats.  
> Cool cats create good vibes!! Maybe forever! It could be! You gotta have hope ❤️