Hanchung Lee

Evaluation and Alignment, The Seminal Papers

It’s a fundamental truth that all software—even AI systems—is broken. AI engineers who can diagnose faults and refine systems to align with business needs are in high demand. Evaluation and Alignment: The Seminal Papers expands the foundational research into judging and adapting AI systems into a collection of practical techniques you can use on the job. As you trace the progression from surface-level text matching to semantic similarity to judgment-based evaluation, you’ll build the mental models necessary to choose the right metrics, detect failure modes, and close the loop from evaluation to alignment.

Evaluation and Alignment: The Seminal Papers teaches you to think of evaluation as a design constraint. You’ll employ a "working backwards" methodology that begins with what your system must get right, which directs you to the appropriate evaluation approach. As you internalize the define > evaluate > analysis > align cycle, you’ll start making more informed tradeoffs and expertly balancing helpfulness, safety, and brand voice in your models.