Towards friendly AI: a comprehensive review and new perspectives on human-AI alignment

Qiyang Sun; Yupei Li; Emran Alturki; Sunil Munthumoduku Krishna Murthy; Björn W. Schuller · 2026 · AI and Ethics 6:193 background low priority coded

Main argument

Thesis (review): 'Friendly AI' deserves revival as the umbrella for equitable/fair AI development; reviews arguments for and against FAI development, offers a formal definition, maps the technical subfields (explainability, privacy, fairness, affective computing) that operationalize friendliness, and identifies challenges/future avenues. Engineering-ethics survey register throughout.

Why it matters here

Engineering-side review resurrecting Yudkowsky's 'Friendly AI' label and mapping it onto XAI, privacy, fairness, and affective computing subfields. Low direct value - mainly a coverage citation showing the engineering community's ethical self-organization; its FAI 'formal definition' is a checklist, not a theory.

Reading notes

Compact treatment (Imperial College/Schuller group; review). Abstract + skim.

Sun, Q., et al. (2026). Towards friendly AI: a comprehensive review and new perspectives on human-AI alignment. AI and Ethics, 6, 193.

Close reading — 1 coded units

#1 · pp. 1 · claim

“Friendly Artificial Intelligence (FAI) has been proposed to advocate for more equitable and fair development of AI. [...] This paper addresses these gaps by providing a thorough review of FAI, focusing on theoretical perspectives both for and against its development, and presenting a formal definition [...] Key technical subfields are discussed from the perspectives of eXplainable AI (XAI), privacy, fairness and Affective Computing (AC).”

TU-LITREV

Synthesis-matrix row

Memos (1)

comparison · unit #1

Coverage citation only: shows the engineering community organizing 'friendliness' as XAI+privacy+fairness+affect - a checklist decomposition that exemplifies exactly what Mittelstadt/Gabriel call placeholder principles (no account of trade-offs between the four, no normative theory beneath them). Useful in the lit review as the contrast case: what alignment discourse looks like without philosophical machinery.