What question did this study set out to answer?

The aim is to challenge the prevailing notion that AI alignment is a technical issue, framing it instead as a governance problem of power and values.

April 22, 2026Open Access

The Myth of Alignment: Why the AI Industry's Central Promise Is a Question of Power, Not Technology

Key Points

The aim is to challenge the prevailing notion that AI alignment is a technical issue, framing it instead as a governance problem of power and values.
Conceptual analysis of AI alignment discourse
Historical comparison to banking sector incentive misalignments of the 1990s
Examination of systemic exclusions in AI value choices
Alignment challenges are rooted in who defines and enforces values in AI systems.
Significant exclusion of billions from meaningful value choices impacts governance.
Current alignment discourse diverts attention from deeper systemic governance issues.

Abstract

The AI industry's central promise — that advanced AI systems can be reliably aligned to human values — misframes the problem it claims to solve. Alignment is not primarily a technical challenge but a question of power: who defines the values, who enforces them, and who bears the consequences. Drawing on incentive misalignment in 1990s banking and the structural exclusion of 6.4 billion people from value choices embedded in globally deployed systems, this essay argues that alignment discourse obscures a deeper governance failure. Essay 4 of the series Beyond Control: Theory of Limits of AI Governance by Oybek Khodjaev (INVEXI LLC, Tashkent, Uzbekistan). Full text: https://okhodjaev.com/essays/the-myth-of-alignment/

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Oybek Khodjaev (Tue,) studied this question.

www.synapsesocial.com/papers/69e8656e6e0dea528dde9f41 — DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19661522

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The Myth of Alignment: Why the AI Industry's Central Promise Is a Question of Power, Not Technology

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