Safety and alignment

MIRI pivots after Nate Soares says its alignable-foundations project largely failed

In MIRI's 2020 strategy update, executive director Nate Soares said the research project he had considered most promising for new, pragmatically feasible foundations for alignable AI had largely failed and was no longer worth MIRI's main focus. MIRI shifted staff and began searching for other approaches while remaining pessimistic about available alignment proposals.

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CURRENT ASSESSMENT · REVISION 1
TOWARD DOOM44confidence 88/100

Why it moved the index

A leading alignment organization discontinuing its main attempted route to transparent, alignable optimization after limited progress is direct evidence of reduced technical safety capacity against advanced-system control problems.

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Assessment history

  1. R1
    Toward 44 · confidence 88

    Initial historical assessment from Nate Soares's dated first-person statement in MIRI's strategy update.

    19 Sept 2026
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  1. DoomBench assesses “MIRI pivots after Nate Soares says its alignable-foundations project largely failed” as evidence moving toward doom, with magnitude 44 and confidence 88 out of 100 in the safety and alignment category.

  2. The DoomBench assessment of “MIRI pivots after Nate Soares says its alignable-foundations project largely failed” is based on reporting from Machine Intelligence Research Institute and records the editorial rationale, source quality,...

  3. DoomBench summarizes “MIRI pivots after Nate Soares says its alignable-foundations project largely failed” as follows: In MIRI's 2020 strategy update, executive director Nate Soares said the research project he had considered most...

    https://www.doombench.com/news/miri-pivots-after-nate-soares-says-its-alignable-foundations-project-largely-failed-2020-12-21