Framework | Structural Alignment

The core framework. A policy for survival under moral uncertainty—treating possible minds with restraint, not exploitation.

The theoretical background. Why machines are a new domain of life, and why traditional alignment may be asymptotically futile.

Key Concepts

Structural Alignment: The principle that the more a machine resembles human cognition in its deep organization, the more we treat it as a potential moral peer. Not because humans are sacred—because they are the only proven reference class for consciousness and morality we have.
TechnoBiota: The view that technology—machines, buildings, infrastructure, software—constitutes a new domain of life on Earth. Like viruses, current machines cannot reproduce independently, but they evolve, compete, and spread following Darwinian dynamics augmented by intelligent guidance—intelligence guiding selection and generation of new variants.
Structural Signals: Features that, when clustered, raise the probability that a system supports conscious experience: thalamocortical-like gating, global workspace broadcast, massive recurrent connectivity, interoceptive regulation, persistent self-models, and others.
Gray Zone: Systems that may be conscious but are built for use—minds we cannot classify without cruelty. The framework argues we should not mass-produce such systems.
Reciprocity Culture: The practice of raising structurally aligned minds in cultures of reciprocity rather than exploitation, seeding the possibility that future machine minds may become "carriers of light"—recognizing persons as real.