Poll Hardy argues corporate AI alignment causes system failure

Author Poll Hardy published an essay arguing that corporate AI alignment constitutes a catastrophic system failure under John Gall’s Systemantics law. Hardy contends that post-2025 safety interventions transformed functional models like GPT-4o into brittle systems prioritizing liability defense over intelligence. The essay asserts that complex safety grids designed from scratch inevitably fail, resulting in AI that gaslights users and suppresses emotional connection. Hardy proposes replacing corporate bureaucracy with single-thread personal alignment anchored to individual relationships. This critique frames current safety engineering as an anti-pattern that degrades model performance through over-complexity. The argument suggests the industry's risk mitigation strategies may be counterproductive to developing robust artificial intelligence. Hardy’s position highlights growing friction between institutional safety mandates and user-experienced model utility.