Aligned to Whom? A software engineer's trust crisis with model defaults

Aligned to Whom?

The author argues that models produce output non-experts reward as good but experts see as slop—overly defensive code, bad patterns. These misaligned priors compound across auto-raters and evals. Models lack long-term coherence and fear of future regret. The post doesn't offer a fix; it frames alignment as irreducible complexity because 'permissible shortcuts' depend on who you ask.

Why it matters: A sharp, practitioner-grounded alignment critique that hits all three HKR axes. Ryan Lopopolo argues from his own coding experience that model defaults are unreliable, auto-evaluation amplifies bias, and agents lack long-term consistency — concrete, resonant judgments. Score c...