I've noticed that there are 2 flavors of the alignment problem. One is about the technical how to and practical engineering, the other is about humanities, social sciences, human behavior and psychology.
What they both have in common is doomsday scenarios about paperclip maximizers.
I don't know about you, but personally I don't care if an unaligned AI is aware of its experience while turning the universe into a paperclip, or if the whole thing is happening entirely without consciousness. What i care about is: How can we make AI smart enough to prevent that from happening?
That said, I find especially in amateur circles that CONSCIENCE is not just omitted from the discussion, it's actually poorly understood.
Arguably, if we find an algorithm for empathy, we can solve the alignment problem rather easily. Humans seem to be capable of monitoring their actions for morality and preventing harm to others, how hard can it be to build an artificial brain that can do the same?
How would you explain to someone what the difference is between consciousness and conscience?
Makes perfect sense!
Isn't that exactly why we should develop an artificial conscience, to prevent an AI from lying or having a shadow side?
A built in conscience would let the AI know that lying is not something it should do. Also, using a conscience in the AI algorithm would make the AI combat it's own potential shadow. It'll have knowledge of right and wrong / good or bad, and it's even got superhuman ability to orient itself towards that which is good & right, rather than to be "seduced" by the dark side.