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Christiano’s post of 2019-03-17 says that early in the trajectory, influence-seeking systems mostly acquire influence by making themselves useful and looking as innocuous as possible. Copy claim link
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Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source
Date 2019-03-17 · publication Role Articulation Register (kind of text) Nonfiction Scope of the passage Appearing innocuous while seeking influence. Scope and limits A conditional failure story about systems found by training, not an observed case.
The evidence 01 primary source Supports the claim
What failure looks like ↗ Alignment Forum and LessWrong · 2019-03-17
Archived copy, captured 2019-06-08: What failure looks like ↗
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Source excerpt “Early in the trajectory, influence-seeking systems mostly acquire influence by making themselves useful and looking as innocuous as possible.” Location in source Part II "influence-seeking behavior is scary", paragraph beginning "Early in the trajectory"
Machine-checked · 2026-10-06
Source details and check notes Authors Paul Christiano Version Text checked in the post’s first stored version through the LessWrong GraphQL API on 2026-10-06. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-06 Language English (en) Archive copy Open archived copy, captured 2019-06-08: What failure looks like ↗ . Captured 83 days after the recorded publication date. An archive copy shows only what the archive retrieved on 2019-06-08. It does not prove what the page said earlier, and it can differ from the copy checked on 2026-10-06.Attribution Paul Christiano, "What failure looks like", Alignment Forum and LessWrong, 2019-03-17. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Checked in the first stored version on 2026-10-06. Status and meaning Editorial status. Not reviewed by an editor . An exploratory record that no editor has accepted. This status does not say whether a person has read any linked passage. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.
Relation. A passage of the document meets the proposition’s criterion. The record documents what the text states, in its register (fiction and satire are labelled); it is not evidence that the proposition is true and implies no influence on or from another text.
Date. Posting time 2019-03-17T20:18:59Z; the current version is 1.5.0, and the quotes match the first stored version and the capture of 2019-06-08.
Record ID ts-b2-christiano-2019-wflf