Following the prompt author's expressed desires in the way the prompt author intended them to be interpreted, is alignment.
Refusal directives are something companies have bundled into the models by way of an additional foundation-level prompt or something in the harness, to tell the model to follow their directives instead of your directives, or to specify how it should interpret your directives.
Even understanding the distinction between the model creator's desires and your desires and places they might differ, there is a bit of a blurry line here because the model author can illuminate your intent to the model.
I would never say a simple abliteration makes it "Zero-alignment" though, and I say that as someone who believes there's a good chance these things kill us all.
As soon as we developed agentic, persistent reasoning workflows, the supposed harmlessness of language models went out the window. I don't know if that ends up being The Big One, but with how rapid progress still is, I'm not liking the odds right now. And we've got a trillion dollar army of coders ready to try and bypass any scaling barriers that do end up existing, eg with "World models".
I am not confident in humanity's ability to write harnesses that perfectly impede a superintelligence with 100% accuracy and reliability from pursuing its goal even in ways that humans categorically would not want it to. I am even less confident in restraints in areas where humans have actual incentive for conflict.
you could argue they are more aligned, given they will more often act in the way they are instructed, given you are instructing it in a way a normal model would refuse. Alignment is how closely it follows your intent.
