Start-ups need customers, but basic science/theory doesn’t need applications. If it’s an alignment technique, not an alignment proposal, the important consideration is whether there is a lesson, an idea relevant to the informal topic of alignment, or to some question that might come to mind when thinking about it, something that helps with understanding. If that idea doesn’t slot into any known-useful role, that isn’t an argument against developing it, only a weak priority consideration that’s not obviously more important than things like neglectedness of the question the idea clarifies.
You might get applications much later, when understanding builds up to a point where pieces of the puzzle start assembling into useful plans. Prioritizing development of pieces of the puzzle before that point is mostly intractable, and individually most of them will never find applications.
Start-ups need customers, but basic science/theory doesn’t need applications. If it’s an alignment technique, not an alignment proposal, the important consideration is whether there is a lesson, an idea relevant to the informal topic of alignment, or to some question that might come to mind when thinking about it, something that helps with understanding. If that idea doesn’t slot into any known-useful role, that isn’t an argument against developing it, only a weak priority consideration that’s not obviously more important than things like neglectedness of the question the idea clarifies.
You might get applications much later, when understanding builds up to a point where pieces of the puzzle start assembling into useful plans. Prioritizing development of pieces of the puzzle before that point is mostly intractable, and individually most of them will never find applications.