An Affective-Taxis Hypothesis for Alignment and Interpretability

Eli Sennesh; Maxwell Ramstead · 2025 · AGI 2025 (Springer LNAI), pp. 188-201 background low priority coded

Main argument

Thesis: an 'affectivist' reframing of alignment - goals and values reconceived as AFFECTIVE TAXIS (valence-guided navigation), with affective valence explained via evolutionary-developmental and computational neuroscience (free energy principle / active inference); proposes a computational model of affect based on taxis navigation with evidence from a tractable model organism, and discusses its role in alignment.

Why it matters here

The affectivist counterpoint: grounds goals/values in affective valence (taxis navigation, active inference) rather than utility or norms. Marginal to the dissertation except as the naturalistic-embodiment contrast to Noller's phronesis/affect argument - what it would take to give machines the affective grounding Noller says virtue requires.

Reading notes

Compact treatment (14pp; computational-neuroscience framing). Abstract read.

Sennesh, E., & Ramstead, M. (2025). An Affective-Taxis Hypothesis for Alignment and Interpretability. In AGI 2025 Proceedings Part II. Springer.

Close reading — 1 coded units

#1 · pp. 188 · claim

“This paper proposes an affectivist approach to the alignment problem, re-framing the concepts of goals and values in terms of affective taxis, and explaining the emergence of affective valence by appealing to recent work in evolutionary-developmental and computational neuroscience.”

VC-OBJ ?

Synthesis-matrix row

contradicts T5-AGENCY-DENIED-EVALUABILITY-KEPT

naturalization route for affect-grounded valuation

Memos (1)

comparison · unit #1

One-cite counterpoint: Noller argues AMCs lack the affectivity virtue requires; Sennesh & Ramstead sketch what engineering affect-grounded valuation would even mean (taxis/active-inference). If their program succeeded, the virtue-ethical disanalogy would narrow - worth a footnote in the moral-agency discussion acknowledging the naturalization route, while noting valence-navigation is far from phronesis.