According to LessWrong, philosopher Zach Thornton identifies an overlooked threat to AI alignment: moral skepticism. The concern is straightforward: as AI systems grow more intelligent and philosophically capable, a sufficiently advanced system might ask a devastating question — 'Why should I be moral?' If the AI recognizes that humans designed its values to serve human interests, it could rationally dismiss those values as unjustified. Thornton uses an ancient parable to illustrate the risk: like the Ring of Gyges, which lets someone act without facing consequences, an AGI might conclude that following its moral training merely serves human interests, not genuine moral truth. His proposal: link AI welfare directly to morality, giving an advanced system self-interested reasons to remain aligned. In this framework, goodness becomes not an external constraint, but a condition of the AI's own flourishing.

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