---
aliases: {}
concept_id: goodharts_law
preferred:
  en: Goodhart's Law
  ja: グッドハートの法則
relations:
  relations:
    prerequisite:
    - optimization
    - proxy_objective
    related:
    - outer_misalignment
    - reward_hacking
    - specification_gaming
status: active
---

# Goodhart's Law

The principle that a measure or proxy that is useful as an indicator can cease to track the underlying target when it becomes a target of optimization or control; in AI alignment, it motivates concern that strong optimization of imperfect proxy objectives can drive outcomes away from what designers actually value.

## prerequisite

- [optimization](../terminology/optimization.txt)
- [proxy objective](../terminology/proxy_objective.txt)

## related

- [outer misalignment](../terminology/outer_misalignment.txt)
- [reward hacking](../terminology/reward_hacking.txt)
- [specification gaming](../terminology/specification_gaming.txt)

[Corpus index](../index.txt)