Bridge Atlas - Episode 4: Alignment | Emmett Shear & Alex Stokes
Emmett Shear (founder of Softmax) argues that alignment is not a fixed state but a relative, multi-scale protocol built on shared success, specialization, and only then enforcement, and warns that a single global, fork-resistant blockchain or AI system would be dangerous because it eliminates the ability to exit or locally reinterpret rules. Alex Stokes (Ethereum Foundation) counters that Ethereum's decentralization and permissionlessness push power to the edges, using rollups and the ability to fork as mechanisms to avoid Shear's feared 'ossified' lock-in, while the two debate whether Ethereum or any man-made protocol can sustain genuine, evolving alignment the way Shear argues organic systems do via Karl Friston's free energy principle.
Emmett Shear, Alex Stokes
