Decoding the Alignment Problem: Revisiting the 1958 NYT Report on Rosenblatt’s Perceptron Through the Lens of Information Theory

Frank Rosenblatt’s 1958 demonstration of the Mark I Perceptron captured public and media attention alike. However, an analysis of a New York Times report from the day of the event suggests a gap between media portrayal and the actual technical achievements. This discrepancy highlights the difficulty of conveying the nuances of emerging technologies through media, often leading to misconceptions about their capabilities. This paper explores the possibilities of using information theory to analyze the mechanisms of such system-based communicational mismatches, particularly in the context of the AI alignment problem.