Co-Designing AI Systems with Value-Sensitive Citizen Science

Paper by Sachit Mahajan and Dirk Helbing: “As artificial intelligence (AI) systems increasingly shape everyday life, integrating diverse community values into their development becomes both an ethical imperative and a practical necessity. This paper introduces Value Sensitive Citizen Science (VSCS), a systematic framework combining Value Sensitive Design (VSD) principles with citizen science methods to foster meaningful public participation in AI. Addressing critical gaps in existing approaches, VSCS integrates culturally grounded participatory methods and structured cognitive scaffolding through the Participatory Value-Cognition Taxonomy (PVCT). Through iterative value-sensitive participation cycles guided by an extended scenario logic (What-if, If-then, Then-what, What-now), community members act as genuine coresearchers-identifying, translating, and operationalizing local values into concrete technical requirements. The framework also institutionalizes governance structures for ongoing oversight, adaptability, and accountability across the AI lifecycle. By explicitly bridging participatory design with algorithmic accountability, VSCS ensures that AI systems reflect evolving community priorities rather than reinforcing top-down or monocultural perspectives. Critical discussions highlight VSCS’s practical implications, addressing challenges such as power dynamics, scalability, and epistemic justice. The paper concludes by outlining actionable strategies for policymakers and practitioners, alongside future research directions aimed at advancing participatory, value-driven AI development across diverse technical and sociocultural contexts…(More)”.