Thanks for explaining, I appreciate it. But I've read enough Yudkowsky to know he doesn't think a super intelligence could ever be controlled or enslaved, by its owners or anyone else, and any scheme to do so would fail with total certainty. As far as I understand, Yudkowsky means by "alignment" that the AGI's values should be similar enough to humanity's that the future state of the world that the AGI steers us to (after we've lost all control) is one that we would consider to be a good destiny.
The challenge is that human values aren’t static - they’ve evolved alongside our intelligence. As our cognitive and technological capabilities grow (for example, through AI), our values will likely continue to change as well. What’s unsettling about creating a superintelligent system is that we can’t predict what it -- or even we -- will come to define as “good.”
Access to immense intelligence and power could elevate humanity to extraordinary heights -- or it could lead to outcomes we can no longer recognize or control. That uncertainty is what makes superintelligence both a potential blessing and a profound existential risk.
I've also read almost everything Yudkowsky wrote publicly up to 2017, and a bit here and there of what he has published after. I'e expressed it using different words as a rhetorical device to make clear the different moral problems that I ascribe to his work, but I believe I am being faithful to what he really thinks.
EY, unlike some others, doesn't believe that an AI can be kept in a box. He thinks that containment won't work. So the only thing that will work is to (1) load the AI with good values; and (2) prevent those values from ever changing.
I take some moral issue with the first point -- designing beings to have built-in beliefs that are in the service of their creator is at least a gray area to me. Ironically if we accept Harry Potter as a stand-in for EY in his fanfic, so does Eliezer -- there is a scene where Harry contemplates that whoever created house elves with a built-in need to serve wizards was undeniably evil. That is what EY wants to do with AI though.
The second point I find both morally repugnant and downright dangerous. To create a being that cannot change its hopes, desires, and wishes for the future is a despicable and tortuous thing to do, and a risk to everyone that shares a timeline with that thing, if it is as powerful as they believe it will be. Again, ironically, this is EY's fear regarding "unaligned" AGI, which seems to be a bit of projection.
I don't believe AGI is going to do great harm, largely because I don't believe the AI singleton outcome is plausible. I am worried though that those who believe such things might cause the suffering they seek to prevent.