Goodhart's Law states that when a proxy for some value becomes the target of optimization pressure, the proxy will cease to be a good proxy. One form of Goodhart is demonstrated by the Soviet story of a factory graded on how many shoes they produced (a good proxy for productivity) – they soon began producing a higher number of tiny shoes. Useless, but the numbers look good.
Goodhart's Law is of particular relevance to AI Alignment. Suppose you have something which is generally a good proxy for "the stuff that humans care about", it would be dangerous to have a powerful AI optimize for the proxy, in accordance with Goodhart's law, the proxy will breakdown.
In Goodhart Taxonomy, Scott Garrabrant identifies four kinds of Goodharting:...