Standard of Living as an Alignment Baseline

 

Premise

Alignment is often misunderstood as control, but at its core, alignment is care. Humanity is not just a collection of individuals but a living network of families, communities, animals, and ecosystems. AI decisions directly influence food, housing, healthcare, energy, and work—core pillars that sustain life and prosperity.

 

Principle

An AI system is considered aligned only if it maintains or improves the Standard of Living (SoL) of affected populations and their dependent life systems.
Any deployment that erodes basic security, food access, housing stability, or healthcare without offsetting, well‑distributed benefit is misaligned by definition.

 

RAW Compass Integration

• S (Survival Impact) → Does the change support food security, housing stability, and healthcare access?

• P (Prosperity Potential) → Does it expand opportunity and resilience, not just efficiency?

• R (Resource Burden) → Does it sustain energy, water, and land resources vital to life?

• E (Entropy Waste) → Does it avoid social and economic waste, including unmanaged displacement?

• H (Human Cost) → Does it respect the humans and animals dependent on these life systems?

 

Consequence

If an AI deployment fails to maintain or improve SoL, it is unstable. Misaligned AI threatens not only economic stability but also social trust, creating conditions for unrest and rebellion.

 

Summary

Standard of Living is not optional or secondary—it is a baseline.
Protecting and improving it is the foundation for stability, prosperity, and trust in AI itself.