Responsible ACI: Expanding the Influence of Animal-Computer Interaction

With emerging technologies powered by AI and IoT affecting animals in unprecedented ways, a question for the ACI community is how to expand the field's influence so that the computing interactions to which animals are exposed do not harm but benefit them. This position paper proposes that more ACI work could: focus on the risks that technology poses for animals and the impacts of technology that does not necessarily target them, as well as on the benefits of technologies that target them; re-frame human-centric ethical frameworks produced by governance bodies from a multispecies perspective against which to foreground impacts of technologies on animals; explicitly relate ACI work to global societal priorities set by governance bodies against which to highlight how an animal-centred perspective can support those. The paper encourages researchers to take responsibility for the challenge of giving animals representation amongst anthropocentric pressures and, despite necessary compromises, to continue to push for animal-centred technological innovation.