A computational framework for human values
Abstract
In the diverse array of work investigating the nature of human values from psychology, philosophy and social sciences, there is a clear consensus that values guide behaviour. More recently, a recognition that values provide a means to engineer ethical AI has emerged. Indeed, Stuart Russell proposed shifting AI's focus away from simply ``intelligence'' towards intelligence ``provably aligned with human values''. This challenge -- the value alignment problem -- with others including an AI's learning of human values, aggregating individual values to groups, and designing computational mechanisms to reason over values, has energised a sustained research effort. Despite this, no formal, computational definition of values has yet been proposed. We address this through a formal conceptual framework rooted in the social sciences, that provides a foundation for the systematic, integrated and interdisciplinary investigation into how human values can support designing ethical AI.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2305.02748,
title = {A computational framework for human values},
author = {Nardine Osman and Mark d'Inverno},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.02748},
year = {2026}
}