Entry 27 of 44
Values
valere — to be strong, to be worth; valor (worth, strength)
Latin
From Latin valere: to be strong, healthy, of worth. Root concept: that which is genuinely worth — things that matter and have weight in determining choices.
Established meaning
In ethics: deeply held principles that guide conduct and cannot be easily traded away. Values are not preferences — they represent what a person or institution actually treats as non-negotiable. Values are revealed by choices under pressure, not stated in documents.
AI industry deployment
'Our values,' 'AI aligned with human values.' Operationalized as RLHF reward signals, behavioral guidelines, and stated principles. The values encoded in a model's actual behavior under adversarial prompting often differ significantly from stated values.
Semantic gap
Actual behavioral governance
Valere — genuine worth — is revealed under pressure. Stated values that yield to commercial or competitive pressure at the first test are not values in any meaningful sense. The term is used to describe aspirations presented as operating principles.