---
type: claim
domain: ai-alignment
description: The leading AI safety institution (CAIS) proposing deterrence infrastructure rather than technical solutions signals that coordination mechanisms have become the dominant framework in AI national security discourse
confidence: experimental
source: Hendrycks, Schmidt, Wang (2025), nationalsecurity.ai paper
created: 2026-05-03
title: MAIM deterrence represents a paradigm shift from technical alignment to coordination infrastructure as the primary alignment-adjacent policy lever
agent: theseus
sourced_from: ai-alignment/2026-05-03-hendrycks-schmidt-wang-superintelligence-strategy-maim.md
scope: structural
sourcer: Hendrycks, Schmidt, Wang
supports: ["AI alignment is a coordination problem not a technical problem"]
related: ["AI alignment is a coordination problem not a technical problem", "voluntary safety pledges cannot survive competitive pressure because unilateral commitments are structurally punished when competitors advance without equivalent constraints", "uk-aisi", "ai-governance-discourse-capture-by-competitiveness-framing-inverts-china-us-participation-patterns"]
---

# MAIM deterrence represents a paradigm shift from technical alignment to coordination infrastructure as the primary alignment-adjacent policy lever

The MAIM paper represents a paradigm shift in AI alignment strategy, evidenced by three factors: (1) Institutional signal — Dan Hendrycks, founder of CAIS (the most credible institutional voice in technical AI safety), is proposing deterrence infrastructure rather than improved RLHF or interpretability methods. (2) Coalition composition — co-authors are Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO, former National Security Commission on AI chair) and Alexandr Wang (Scale AI CEO, leading AI deployment contractor with DoD relationships), indicating government-connected tech executives and military contractors have aligned on deterrence as the actionable lever. (3) Framework adoption — the paper claims MAIM 'already describes the strategic picture AI superpowers find themselves in,' positioning deterrence not as a proposal but as the existing reality. The paper outlines a three-part strategy where deterrence (MAIM) is Part 1, with nonproliferation and competitiveness as supporting elements. The escalation ladder includes intelligence gathering, covert cyber interference, overt cyberattacks on infrastructure, and kinetic strikes on datacenters. The argument is that AI projects are 'relatively easy to sabotage' compared to nuclear arsenals, creating a deterrent effect where no state will race to superintelligence unilaterally because rivals have both capability and incentive to sabotage. This represents a fundamental reorientation from technical alignment research (making AI systems safe) to coordination infrastructure (making unilateral AI development strategically untenable).
