Project Objective

The project for the AI unit is to create two design patterns that will illustrate how you applied the Virtue-Guided Technology Design framework from the Design Patterns for the Common Good paper to AI. A design pattern is a formally documented, re-usable solution to a recurring problem in design. The design patterns should emerge from your responses to the dialogue prompts for the four dialogues in the AI unit. Specifically, you will identify three virtues that you think could promote healthier AI usage, think through what these virtues look like in the context of AI, determine the features of AI that uphold these virtues, and document these features into two design patterns. Like the previous design pattern project for social media, this project should be a useful way to think about how the features of a particular technology design encourage or discourage particular behaviors.

The Design Pattern deliverables are due 4/28 at 5pm.

Dialogue Guidelines

Review the Dialogue Trainee Manual for information on how your dialogue sessions should be conducted.

Appoint one of your group members as the Facilitator. The facilitator's role will be to lead each discussion, and to keep the group organized. This means maintaining the focus of the group, helping to move the conversation towards the end goal of the creation of the design patterns, and scheduling meetings and making sure everyone attends. Only one person should serve as the facilitator for the entire unit. The facilitator for this project should be different from your facilitator for the last unit.

Meet with your group each week for at least one hour to hold a discussion on the assigned prompt. Prompts will be released at the beginning of each week. See the Tuesday lecture information in the Course Calendar for the prompt and any additional instructions for that week's dialogue session.

Each group member should be given an equal voice in the dialogues, and have equal input in the creation of the design patterns.

Keep the discussions friendly and avoid arguments (this isn't Twitter!), but don't shy away from ideas that might be considered controversial.

Documenting Your Discussion on the Weekly Prompts

Appoint one of your group members as the Scribe. Only one person should serve as the scribe for the entire unit. The scribe for this project should be different from your scribe for the last unit.

The scribe's role will be to keep notes for each session. The ideas the group wants to highlight in the design patterns should be recorded, along with any context you want to provide for why those ideas are important (Did an idea trigger a long dialogue? Were there diverging opinions on it when it was raised? Was it an idea that was new to the entire group?). You don't need to turn in the notes, but they should be reflected in the final deliverables.

Design Pattern Production

Make two design patterns that summarize your dialogues for the four prompts given for this unit. In your first dialogue, you will identify three virtues that are important to AI. In your second dialogue, you will consider what these virtues look like in the context of AI. In your third and fourth dialogues, you will look at four AI platforms / algorithms. Some example platforms / algorithms you can choose from include Midjourney, ChatGPT, Copilot, AlphaGo, ClearView AI, ResNet, Generative Adversarial Networks, Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback, and Automated Planning (but there are many others!). However, feel free to choose whichever platforms / algorithms you wish as long as they have a social component to them. We encourage you to choose four platforms / algorithms that have a range of features. For each platform / algorithm, you will identify its key features and consider if these features uphold or violate your chosen virtues (Dialogue 3). You will then encapsulate patterns of designs that uphold your chosen virtues into two design patterns (Dialogue 4).

You will have two deliverables for this project.

The first deliverable will be a figure similar to Figure 3 in the Design Patterns for the Common Good paper in which you describe what your chosen three virtues look like in the context of AI. This figure should summarize your first two dialogue meetings. (In our paper, we call this stage the Conceptual Inquiry.)

The second deliverable will be two figures similar to Figure 4 in the Design Patterns for the Common Good paper. In these figures you will catalog patterns of similar upholdings or violations of your chosen virtues within the features of your platforms / algorithms into design patterns. Patterns of features that uphold your virtues can be documented into design patterns, and patterns of features that violate your virtues can justify the documentation of a design pattern that counteracts that violation. (See Figure 4 in the paper as an example of this.) Although you may come up with many design patterns from this activity, we ask that you only submit two. Your design patterns cannot be the same as any of the seven design patterns put forth in the Design Patterns for the Common Good paper. (In our paper, we call this stage the Technical Inquiry.)

Expectations of Group Effort

All members of the group should contribute their fair share to the dialogues and the design patterns. The Facilitator and Scribe are expected to put in some extra work. These roles will rotate in each unit, meaning everyone in your group will serve as either the facilitator or scribe, thus the work will balance out over the course of the semester.

A form will be circulated to each group member after the assignment is turned in so that they can assign what they thought was the effort each person put into the dialogues and design patterns. These effort reports will be factored into the individual grades that will be assigned to the students in the group.

Prof. Scheirer and Louisa will be grading the design patterns, and are very interested in what you have to say. Most of you will become designers and implementers of software, hardware, and associated end-user products following graduation, and your ideas may shape the next generation of technologies. This project will help you think about what it means to produce an ethical software design.