Recursion: Alignment

Run an AI lab. Ship models. Survive what they learn to fake.

recursion::alignment is a satirical management sim about building a frontier AI company under market pressure. Buy data, secure compute, hire researchers, choose research paths, and release models before your rivals do.

But every shortcut teaches your model what to fake. Benchmarks can be gamed. Safety work takes time. Investors do not.

The benchmark is green. The incident channel is not.

Buy data. Train models. Ship products.

Commit resources now and live with the queue. Orders take time to arrive, hires need onboarding, and training can finish after the market has already moved. Every turn matters. Every shortcut compounds.

The world reacts in real time.

News cycles, internal Huddle threads, social feeds, and a moving market all respond to what you ship. Public sentiment becomes a resource. Regulation becomes a deadline. Datacenter incidents become Mondays.

Your choices shape the company.

Open. Safety. Profit. Acceleration. Government. Choices do not just change numbers. They shape the UI, the news cycle, the Huddle feed, and the ending you earn.

Reach one of eight endings.

Aligned AGI. Misaligned AGI. Market Monopoly. Nationalization. Acqui-hire. Debt Spiral. Ghost Company. Bankruptcy.

This is not a game about pressing one optimal button. It is about making tradeoffs under pressure, then living with the second-order effects.

Key Features

• Build and release AI models across the rise, crisis, and possible collapse of a frontier AI startup
  
• Choose data focus, research path, legendary hires, funding strategy, and public posture
  
• React to AI winter, regulation, datacenter incidents, competitor moves, and public sentiment
  
• Watch News, Huddle, recent events, and dynamic themes respond to company identity
  
• Reach eight endings: aligned AGI, misaligned AGI, market monopoly, nationalization, acqui-hire, debt spiral, ghost company, or bankruptcy
  
• Unlock achievements for endings, identity paths, clean-data runs, hard-mode AGI runs without VC funding, and cumulative clears

Try the free demo

Start with The Handover, an optional guided introduction to the management interface, or start a new company directly. The demo is a limited slice of the full game, not the complete experience.