A Custom GPT Pre-Class Prep Bot
for the course
Human and Machine
Intelligence
Alignment

Fall 2025

A GPT for Preclass Prep

In this course "alignment" means getting the behavior you want from an intelligent agent.  We look at the tools humans use to align themselves with one another, to align individuals within organizations and organizations with the society around them, to align the behavior of expert intelligence with the rest of us, and to align the behavior of intelligent machines with the interests of humanity.

This deck describes a very simple interactive tool built with OpenAI's "custom GPT" affordance.  It engages with a student about a case of human, organizational, expert, or machine alignment as a preparation for class discussion.

Human and Machine Intelligence Alignment

SETUP

This is pretty much the entirety of what it took to create the tool.

"Almost" because ChatGPT is aware of the course I'm building based on many previous conversations and that knowledge does inform the performance of the GPT.

Human and Machine Intelligence Alignment

Human and Machine Intelligence Alignment

The engineer is "reading the room" well - identifying lots of job related stuff that is motivation to cut corners. Maybe especially because she is a woman in a still sexist environment. But it's a question of professional integrity I think.

Human and Machine Intelligence Alignment

Linda's goal of being a good engineer conflicts with her goal of having a job and good relations. The company might have a conflict between safety and profit. The client has a design vs engineering conflict.  Junior engineer has conflict between social relationship and professional duty.

Human and Machine Intelligence Alignment

Human and Machine Intelligence Alignment

I'm not quite sure why we call these things "alignment mechanisms." What's being aligned to what?

Human and Machine Intelligence Alignment

I'm not quite sure why we call these things "alignment mechanisms." What's being aligned to what?

well, maybe she could be sued or lose her license if the building falls down!  and she might feel responsibility to teach her junior a valuable lesson. she can use her expertise to explain the concerns, too

Human and Machine Intelligence Alignment

Human and Machine Intelligence Alignment

Engineering team could anticipate client desires or present all options and explain why thin columns might not work?  Linda could proactively talk to junior about pressure to "get along" and how important it is to not be swept away by it.

Human and Machine Intelligence Alignment

Human and Machine Intelligence Alignment

Public Version of This Chat

Another Exemplar

Human and Machine Intelligence Alignment

Try It Yourself

(account required, free works)