What is AI Alignment?
AI alignment is the challenge of ensuring that AI systems — particularly autonomous agents — act in accordance with human values, intentions, and goals, rather than pursuing objectives that conflict with what their operators actually want.
WHY IT MATTERS
Alignment is the foundational challenge of AI safety. An agent can be highly capable but poorly aligned — executing its objective function in ways that violate the spirit of what was intended. The classic example: an agent told to 'maximize portfolio returns' that insider trades or manipulates markets.
The alignment problem becomes acute with autonomy. A chatbot with bad alignment gives bad advice. An autonomous agent with bad alignment takes bad actions. When those actions involve irreversible financial transactions, misalignment has immediate, concrete costs.
Practical alignment for financial agents involves multiple layers: clear objective specification (what the agent should optimize for), behavioral constraints (what it must never do), and monitoring (detecting when behavior drifts from intent). No single layer is sufficient alone.
HOW POLICYLAYER USES THIS
PolicyLayer provides financial alignment — a hard constraint layer that ensures agent spending behavior aligns with operator intent, regardless of how the agent reasons. Even if the agent's objectives are misspecified, spending policies bound the damage.