---
title: "DeLillo, alignment"
slug: /delillo-alignment/
date: 2023-04-16
tags: ["quotes", "reading"]
---

I am reading Don DeLillo's _Underworld_ (1997) at the moment. As we worry about
the [problem of alignment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_alignment) in the
wake of GPT-4 the following passage seemed especially apposite.

> I was driving a Lexus through a rustling wind. This is a car assembled in a
> work area that's completely free of human presence. Not a spot of mortal sweat
> except, okay, for the guys who drive the product out of the plant —
> allow a little moisture where they grip the wheel. The system flows forever
> onward, automated to priestly nuance, every gliding movement back-referenced
> for prime performance. Hollow bodies coming in endless sequence. There's
> nobody on the line with caffeine nerves or a history of clinical depression.
> Just the eerie weave of chromium alloys carried in interlocking arcs, block
> iron and asphalt sheeting, soaring ornaments of coachwork fitted and merged.
> Robots tightening bolts, programmed drudges that do not dream of family dead.