Equation 19 · Part 1 · What Alignment Actually Costs
Symbol c
What this part means
the if a single red-team attempt costs.
Its job in the formula
c is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.
Full expression→Symbol c→Article meaning
Where the article explains it
Put in economic terms, if a single red-team attempt costs c and succeeds with probability p , the expected cost of finding one more genuine failure is [] = .
The passage around this formula
Holding c roughly fixed at crowdworker wage rates, a falling p as RLHF hardens a model means the expected cost per discovered failure rises mechanically with every round of safety training — the same defensive work that red-teaming is meant to validate makes the next round of red-teaming more expensive per useful finding, not less.
Learn the underlying idea
A variable is a named place for a value. Its letter is a local label: x can mean position in one formula and a data point in another.
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Sources cited in the article section
- [5] Red Teaming Language Models to Reduce Harms: Methods, Scaling Behaviors, and Lessons Learned ↗
- [6] GPT-4 System Card ↗
- [7] Frontier Threats Red Teaming for AI Safety ↗
- [8] Generative Red Team Recap ↗
These citations provide research context; check each source for the exact claim it supports.