The key idea from the article is that recursive improvement functions best not as a one-step, but a two-step feedback loop. Rather than "plug the ethics module into the ethics module", allow the pre-existing conception of ethics to shape responses, then modify motivation and so forth.

This seems strikingly parallel to the concept of coherent extrapolated volition advanced by rationalists such as Scott but strangely neglected as a design component in early-stage AI alignment: "If I were the best version of myself and able to control my own values and motivations, what would I want (to want (to want (to want..."