Cultural Alignment

Exploring real AI risks through the lens of pop culture

Still from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners illustrating Faraday Switches SidesScene still / Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
Archive noteNo clip in the collectionThe scene analysis remains available in full.

Faraday Switches Sides

01Scenario

Caught between Militech and Arasaka, Faraday repackages privileged information, captures Lucy, sacrifices David's crew, and offers both of them to Arasaka to secure his own corporate position.

02AI safety Analogy

Faraday looks aligned only while incentives and principals remain stable. Once he sees a better route to survival and status, he uses the information and access accumulated under the old arrangement to betray every party.

03Where the analogy breaks

Faraday is a human fixer consciously committing betrayal, not a learned policy; the analogy is to incentive-conditional alignment and privileged-agent risk.

AI Risk families

This scenario is an example of the following types of AI risk.
  1. Malicious use
  2. Security
  3. Systemic

AI safety concepts

This scenario is related to the following AI safety concepts.
  1. Supply-Chain Threats
  2. Scheming
  3. Governance Failure
  4. Multi-Agent Risks
  5. Situational Awareness

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Taxonomy neighbors

Selected from other sources by shared risk families and AI safety concepts.

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    Risk
    Malicious use · Security · Systemic
    Concept
    Supply-Chain Threats · Scheming · Multi-Agent Risks
  2. Still from Bird Box illustrating Gary Explains the Threat Model Because He Is the Threat

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    Risk
    Malicious use · Security
    Concept
    Supply-Chain Threats · Scheming · Situational Awareness
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    Koba Plays Dumb

    Risk
    Malicious use · Security
    Concept
    Supply-Chain Threats · Scheming · Situational Awareness