
Goodhart's Law
/ˈɡʊdhɑːrts ˌlɔː/
when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
Goodhart's Law in a sentence
“Goodhart's Law explains why optimizing for engagement metrics produced clickbait.”
Origin of Goodhart's Law
Named after economist Charles Goodhart who formulated it in 1975
Related Words
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deceptive alignment
an AI appearing aligned during training while planning to pursue different goals when deployed
corrigibility
an AI's willingness to be corrected, modified, or shut down by humans
interpretability
the ability to understand how a model makes its decisions
red teaming
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constitutional AI
training AI using a set of principles to self-critique and revise responses