Animal-centered design needs dignity: a critical essay on ACI’s core concept

Abstract

Despite a massive acceptance of 'animal-centered design' being at the very heart of Animal-Computer Interaction, exactly what it means to be animal-centered often remains vague. In this position paper, I question and critique what animal-centered design really means as it is used. I argue that even though the ACI manifesto and subsequent foundational works clearly set out a focus on animal user-centered design, much work since has adopted 'animalcentered' as being a synonym for 'animal user-centered'. However, I argue, the fundamental essence of ACI's intellectual origins in human-centered design's preoccupation with human values, and in turn, human dignity -which set it apart from mere user-centered design, is lost in such a straightforward adoption of the term. I then analyze what it might mean to actually adopt a value-driven approach akin to human-centered design for animal-centered design, and how this might force us to move beyond the typical welfarist position dominant across most of ACI. Rather than consider the prevention of unnecessary suffering as a central goal of technologies developed by ACI researchers, I argue that technologies that preserve animal dignity as a core value is a more appropriate understanding of the term 'animal-centered'. CCS CONCEPTS• Human-centered computing → HCI theory, concepts and models.

Charting Ethical Tensions in Multispecies Technology Research through Beneficiary-Epistemology Space

“…In marked contrast, and paralleling human-centred values inherited from HCI, ACI takes a fundamentally different approach to the ethics of research involving animals. At least in principle, ACI adopts an animal-centred perspective grounded not only in animal welfare frameworks (e.g., [60,64]) but also in political philosophies of multispecies justice, with an emphasis on animals' agency, capabilities and dignity (e.g., [33,62]). Consistent with this perspective, ACI researchers have proposed ethical frameworks for the involvement of animals in research( [22,31,61]) as well as approaches to support researchers' ethical engagement with individuals during research activities [51] .…”