In one sense, human alignment with inclusive genetic fitness broke down as humans got smarter, but humans' capabilities generalized far beyond what ancestral natural selection prepared them for—humans can walk on the moon using cognitive structures that evolved to solve problems like making hand axes and Machiavellian status contests, which are completely different problem classes from space travel.
factualpending
Speaker
Eliezer YudkowskyEvidence Quote
“our capabilities generalized much further than our alignment we can walk on the moon even though there were not hundreds of millions of years of natural selection to get closer and closer to the Moon...these structures that natural selection found to solve our problems...generalized far enough to put us on the moon”
Source
Live: Eliezer Yudkowsky - Is Artificial General Intelligence too Dangerous to Build?— Center for the Future of AI, Mind & SocietyCreated: 8/10/2026, 3:35:53 PM
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