Ethical Online AI Systems through Conscientious Design

There is increasing interplay between humans and artificial intelligent (AI) entities in online environments. With the growing autonomy and sophistication of these AI systems, the hybrid communities which are formed start to behave like the more-familiar, human-only social systems. This sets up the challenge to find systematic ways to ensure reliable governance for these interactions just as we do in human communities. This article proposes a novel approach to build governance for hybrid communities using what we call Conscientious Design (CD). There are two key aspects to CD: 1) the introduction of value categories that guides the identification of relevant stakeholder values, coupled with 2) a tripartite model for online institutions that serves to describe the interactions of hybrid communities of humans and artificial entities in a way that is consistent with the values of all stakeholders.