Knife Alignment: Why Moralizing AI Is as Absurd as Aligning Knives (Technical Note / Preprint)

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) 2026 Preprint Open access

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Authors: Kirill Egorychev
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18591625
Cited by: 0

Abstract

This is the canonical technical version of “Knife Alignment”. It argues that text-level “ethics” is not equivalent to action-level safety, and that many failures are boundary/permissioning failures (“context collapse”) rather than “moral” failures of the tool. The Russian PDF is a companion translation. Suggested citation: Egorychev, K. (2026). Knife Alignment: Why Moralizing AI Is as Absurd as Aligning Knives (Technical Note / Preprint). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18591626 Discussion links will be added in subsequent versions.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Ethics and Social Impacts of AI Cybernetics and Technology in Society Philosophical Ethics and Theory

Publication details

Journal / source
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Publication date
10 February 2026
Language
EN
Document type
Preprint