alignment alway seemed like a bit of a silly concept to me, Humans can’t even align with each other (which is why we have war, politics, and conflict). And, given the insights of Freud, Minsky, and Ainslie, we realize that we can’t even achieve alignment within ourselves, because we are a mess of conflicting desires – not just accidentally, but constitutively.
This also is one of the central teachings of Buddhism (AFAICT!)., In meditation you can observe various mental processes doing their thing. Do that enough and you start to get a feel for what energies (desires) make it all go, and you might feel some control over them. But that too is just an illusion. Going meta is great but it sin;t enough, you have to go hypermeta.