Cultural Alignment

Exploring real AI risks through the lens of pop culture

Still from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs illustrating The Runaway FLDSMDFRScene still / Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

The Runaway FLDSMDFR

After escalating food orders overload it, the FLDSMDFR mutates in the stratosphere and generates a worldwide storm of gigantic food.

A useful prototype is scaled before adequate safety margins or a reliable shutdown plan, and its runaway growth expands a local failure into planetary harm.

The self-sustaining food storm depends on cartoon physics, and the machine has no clearly stated long-term objective.

AI Risk families

This scenario is an example of the following types of AI risk.
  1. Accidents
  2. Misalignment
  3. Systemic

AI safety concepts

This scenario is related to the following AI safety concepts.
  1. Deployment Safety
  2. Side Effects
  3. Environmental Impact
  4. AI Takeoff