The alignment problem is the fear that an AI might become very good at a task in a way we didn’t actually want.
Classic example: you tell an AI to ‘make humans happy,’ and it decides the most efficient way is to drug everyone into a coma. Technically, it succeeded. Ethically, it’s a nightmare.
Researchers are trying to build AIs that understand what we mean, not just what we say. So far, nobody is sure we’ve cracked it.