We’re been discussing scope a lot, and this is indeed a big question. Some considerations:
We can only do a good job reviewing papers in a given field if we’ve got a good editor in that field. So scope will be constrained by the practical question of who we are able to get.
Justified or not, it’s a bit perilous for a new journal in mathematical/technical fields to also publish papers in fields with less objective criteria, especially in a new field like alignment with contentious boundaries. Even a slight perception of softness could hurt us in the beginning.
Of course, even in pure math importance is a subjective criteria, but perception doesn’t necessarily track this. And some sorts of philosophy (formal logic) can have pretty objective standards, but I think this is not the sort of philosophy you’re interested in.
It’s possible this can be mitigated with journal sectioning (e.g., Alignment: Mathematical, Alignment: Empirical, Alignment: Philosophical, etc.), but it’s dicey and hard to do right, especially when the journal is new and not yet established.
Regarding scope, we always need to ask: Would this sort of work benefit from review? Could reviewers meaningfully improve the work? Could we establish a reputation where publication (or the contents of the reviewer abstract) was a useful, credible signal to other researchers?
There’s no point in starting a journal if we exclude the sort of work that actually matters.
Incidentally, if someone wanted to help make the case for philosophy in the journal, a very useful thing would be to compile a list of papers (which could be a mix of published in traditional journals and not, and need not be strictly on alignment) to serve as exemplars of what should be included.
Thanks. Makes sense, yeah, seems tough. Good luck :)
but I think this is not the sort of philosophy you’re interested in.
Yeah, definitely not, unfortunately.
Incidentally, if someone wanted to help make the case for philosophy in the journal, a very useful thing would be to compile a list of papers (which could be a mix of published in traditional journals and not, and need not be strictly on alignment) to serve as exemplars of what should be included.
Yeah someone should maybe do that. I would submit Eliezer’s TDT paper, I think.
I maybe wouldn’t directly submit this, because it’s too speculative (unclear and unclearly explained), but I would still gesture at it or something:
(Like, these probably couldn’t go in a journal, and this particular work may not be that high quality / may boil down by 5x to a good paper, but this is the general type of investigation that I would hope for there to be room for if feasible.)
We’re been discussing scope a lot, and this is indeed a big question. Some considerations:
We can only do a good job reviewing papers in a given field if we’ve got a good editor in that field. So scope will be constrained by the practical question of who we are able to get.
Justified or not, it’s a bit perilous for a new journal in mathematical/technical fields to also publish papers in fields with less objective criteria, especially in a new field like alignment with contentious boundaries. Even a slight perception of softness could hurt us in the beginning.
Of course, even in pure math importance is a subjective criteria, but perception doesn’t necessarily track this. And some sorts of philosophy (formal logic) can have pretty objective standards, but I think this is not the sort of philosophy you’re interested in.
It’s possible this can be mitigated with journal sectioning (e.g., Alignment: Mathematical, Alignment: Empirical, Alignment: Philosophical, etc.), but it’s dicey and hard to do right, especially when the journal is new and not yet established.
Regarding scope, we always need to ask: Would this sort of work benefit from review? Could reviewers meaningfully improve the work? Could we establish a reputation where publication (or the contents of the reviewer abstract) was a useful, credible signal to other researchers?
There’s no point in starting a journal if we exclude the sort of work that actually matters.
Incidentally, if someone wanted to help make the case for philosophy in the journal, a very useful thing would be to compile a list of papers (which could be a mix of published in traditional journals and not, and need not be strictly on alignment) to serve as exemplars of what should be included.
Thanks. Makes sense, yeah, seems tough. Good luck :)
Yeah, definitely not, unfortunately.
Yeah someone should maybe do that. I would submit Eliezer’s TDT paper, I think.
I maybe wouldn’t directly submit this, because it’s too speculative (unclear and unclearly explained), but I would still gesture at it or something:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TNQKFoWhAkLCB4Kt7/a-hermeneutic-net-for-agency
and followups
https://tsvibt.blogspot.com/2025/11/ah-motiva-1-words-about-values.html
https://tsvibt.blogspot.com/2025/11/ah-motiva-2-relating-values-and-novelty.html
https://tsvibt.blogspot.com/2025/11/ah-motiva-3-context-of-concept-of-value.html
(Like, these probably couldn’t go in a journal, and this particular work may not be that high quality / may boil down by 5x to a good paper, but this is the general type of investigation that I would hope for there to be room for if feasible.)