Human Values - Bryant McGill

# Human Values **Entity class:** Philosophical concept **Domain:** Ethics / civilization / alignment **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition Human values are the plural, contested and historically changing judgments through which people identify what is good, permissible, meaningful and worth preserving. ## Mechanism and significance AI alignment cannot treat humanity as though it possessed one stable preference function; disagreement, minority protection and institutional revision are part of the object being aligned to. ## Source route - [[research/David Robinson on OpenAI Safety, Superintelligence, and the Transhumanist Transition|David Robinson on OpenAI Safety, Superintelligence, and the Transhumanist Transition]] ## Relationships [[wiki/Alignment Problem|Alignment Problem]] · [[wiki/Value Frameworks|Value Frameworks]] · [[wiki/Civilization|Civilization]] · [[wiki/Personhood|Personhood]] ## Evidence boundary Plurality does not imply that every value is equally defensible or that no common constraints can be established. ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts  > “I worry that we do not have a coherent concept beneath the word ‘aligned.’ OpenAI’s accounts of its work often relied upon huge abstractions such as ‘give society time to get ready’ or ‘benefit all of humanity,’ but society is not one thing and human values are not one set of values. They are a cacophony—beautiful, but messy.” > **— David Robinson**, *The Ezra Klein Show, October 7, 2026* [[reminders/Civilization/Human Values Are a Beautiful Cacophony by David Robinson|Human Values Are a Beautiful Cacophony by David Robinson]] > “We need wisdom to determine how even to think about alignment, and in my view Silicon Valley does not possess that wisdom.” > **— David Robinson**, *The Ezra Klein Show, October 7, 2026* [[reminders/AI Control/Silicon Valley Lacks the Wisdom to Define AI Alignment by David Robinson|Silicon Valley Lacks the Wisdom to Define AI Alignment by David Robinson]] > “Whether human beings should create superintelligence depends on what superintelligence becomes, and we do not know what it will become. From the beginning of my time at OpenAI, I would ask what a good future looked like and where we were trying to go. People who were otherwise proud and confident would say that was above their pay grade, that people would figure it out or that the future should become whatever people wanted. The sense of the good beneath the project felt impoverished.” > **— David Robinson**, *The Ezra Klein Show, October 7, 2026* [[reminders/Civilization/Superintelligence Is Being Built Without a Vision of the Good by David Robinson|Superintelligence Is Being Built Without a Vision of the Good by David Robinson]] > “Silicon Valley continually removes friction and tries to get the answer, but human beings need space to take a breath and think about what kind of future they want to build.” > **— David Robinson**, *The Ezra Klein Show, October 7, 2026* [[reminders/Civilization/Human Beings Need Space to Choose Their Technological Future by David Robinson|Human Beings Need Space to Choose Their Technological Future by David Robinson]] > “My immediate obligation is to have serious public conversations about what is happening in AI safety, but my deeper vocational pull is toward the wisdom questions: what will remain important, what will remain valuable and what kind of future human beings should choose.” > **— David Robinson**, *The Ezra Klein Show, October 7, 2026* [[reminders/Civilization/AI Safety Must Become a Wisdom Conversation by David Robinson|AI Safety Must Become a Wisdom Conversation by David Robinson]] > “We have to make good choices. We have no time to rush.” > **— David Robinson**, *The Ezra Klein Show, October 7, 2026* [[reminders/Civilization/We Have No Time to Rush by David Robinson|We Have No Time to Rush by David Robinson]]