Talk:The Alignment Problem

A fact from The Alignment Problem appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 26 January 2022 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that The Alignment Problem, a book discussing existential risk from AI, was one of five "books that inspired Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella" in 2021?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2022/January. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/The Alignment Problem.

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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 18:20, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Article history

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... that The Alignment Problem, a book discussing existential risk from AI, was one of "5 books that inspired Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella this year"? Source: Nadella, Satya (November 15, 2021). "5 books that inspired Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella this year". Fast Company. Retrieved December 5, 2021.
- Comment: I'm a little late to nominating this, sorry. I had a hook in mind on December 9, four days after the creation of the article. Just reading Template talk:Did you know, I didn't realize that new articles were supposed to be nominated within seven days, so I put off nomination for a bit later. An alternative hook: that could be used Did you know... that Brian Christian, the author of The Alignment Problem, was named the Most Human Human in the Loebner Prize (which is the contemporary version of the Turing test)?

Created by Jmill1806 (talk). Nominated by Enervation (talk) at 18:21, 21 December 2021 (UTC).[reply]

Comment I don't want to do a formal review just yet (i'd be happy to waive the timing requirement), but I do have a question; if the article doesn't have 1500 characters of reliably-sourced interpretation and prose, rather than just synopsis, does that fulfill the length requirement? I'd probably prefer that there were 1500 non-synopsis prose characters. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 06:59, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Aighty, from conversation at WT:DYK, it should be fine. Continuing review... theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 16:55, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Enervation: Moving on, the article is neutral and the hook is interesting (QPQ not needed, image not provided), but I have some problems with the sourcing for the article and hook here. The article relies on a Forbes.com contributor for their own opinion, which, since Forbes.com contributors are considered generally unreliable by community consensus at WP:RSP], doesn't seem sturdy enough for inclusion. I'll take Fast Company at face value as reliable, but since the article is written by the Microsoft CEO, it's technically a primary source; hooks usually require secondary sourcing. Is there a secondary source for the hook, and content to replace the Forbes.com contributor section? We may need a new hook, which is fine. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 17:01, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't think there's anything wrong with using a primary source (i.e. the Fast Company link) as a source for hooks provided it's uncontroversial information that isn't likely to be faked. I mean, I'm willing to assume good faith that Nadella wouldn't lie about the books that inspired him, would he? Besides, WP:PRIMARY does state that as long as a layperson can understand the source and there's no interpretation involved, the source should be just fine. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 09:20, 7 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  - I suppose you're right—I didn't think the information was fabricated, just possibly irrelevant given its primary nature. The Forbes Contributor link will still need to be worked out, though, Enervation. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 09:14, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    - @Theleekycauldron: I took out the Forbes Contributor article and replaced it with reviews from more reliable publications to help move this one along. BuySomeApples (talk) 00:26, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      - should be good to go, then! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 00:28, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        Great, thank you all for the help! We should probably change "this year" to "in 2021", since we're now on a new year. So I would propose this revised text:

... that The Alignment Problem, a book discussing existential risk from AI, was one of "5 books that inspired Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella" in 2021? Source: Nadella, Satya (November 15, 2021). "5 books that inspired Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella this year". Fast Company. Retrieved December 5, 2021. —Enervation (talk) 18:03, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]