A Structural Similarity Between Two Open Corrigibility Questions

LessWrong reports that researcher Ben Saudek examines a fundamental challenge in building corrigible AI agents—systems designed to remain genuinely open to human correction and oversight. He explores two questions that initially seem separate: How should an agent balance conflicting commands from a single principal across time, respecting newer instructions while maintaining older directives? And, can a multi-person team actually function as a unified principal to which an agent is accountable? Saudek proposes these problems are structurally similar—both require an agent to aggregate multiple versions of the principal's intent. The distinction may hinge on what constitutes a time step: whether conflicting commands belong to one collective decision or separate ones.

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