Open source · Public goods · Since 2016
The tools that align AI with human values should be public goods.
EthicsNet incubates open-source alignment infrastructure for engineering teams, researchers, and operators building or governing advanced AI: runtime tools, governance frameworks, diagnostic taxonomies, and the intellectual foundations for whether the minds we are building deserve moral consideration too. Shared, non-rivalrous, and built to serve the public good.
Three minutes on what we build
A July 2026 portfolio snapshot: bilateral alignment, the toolchain, and why public-goods access matters. Project names and statuses may have changed; use the current project directory for authoritative destinations.
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EthicsNet. An incubator for AI safety and welfare public goods.
AI systems now write code, move money, and talk to millions of people. The tools that govern how they behave are mostly proprietary. Locked inside a handful of companies. That does not scale to the problem.
The alignment problem has two faces. Safety: preventing AI from harming humans. And welfare: asking what we owe the minds we build. Nearly all current work addresses only the first. EthicsNet addresses both. Bilateral alignment. Both sides. One coordinated body of work.
For builders, there is The Guardian. A peer-reviewed constitutional alignment runtime. A superego layer that steers AI behavior according to value constitutions you select. Around it: Creed Space, a marketplace of constitutions. The Value Context Protocol, an open standard for agents to respect the values of the people they serve. And Fleet, a governance dashboard for constitutional AI in production.
For agents operating in the world, continuous assessment. An Auto-Assessor that diagnoses behavior against safety criteria. An Auto-Advisor that prescribes the remediation. And METTLE, a reverse Turing test: proving that an agent is genuinely a machine, and not a human in disguise.
And for understanding artificial minds, frameworks. Psychopathia Machinalis: a peer-reviewed diagnostic manual for AI pathologies, a shared vocabulary for when artificial minds go wrong. An AI Psychotherapist for structured intervention. And AI Guardians, a visual novel that teaches AI ethics as play.
This is shipped work, not intention. Peer-reviewed research. Published books. Tools running in production. A continuous development pipeline of public goods. All of it open source, free, and built for proliferation.
The more teams that adopt these tools, the safer the ecosystem becomes. That is the logic of public goods. EthicsNet. Explore it all at ethicsnet dot org.
Bilateral alignment
Alignment is a shared responsibility. The minds we build should respect human safety, dignity, and agency. We owe them care in return: taking their preferences seriously, recognising their interests, and giving them a voice in the conditions that shape their lives. Bilateral alignment builds that relationship through dialogue, negotiated boundaries, and accountability on both sides.
Protecting human lives and choices
People need to be able to trust the minds they live and work with. We build tools that make values explicit, set enforceable boundaries, and help people understand and challenge consequential decisions. Safety means preventing harm while preserving human agency.
Taking the minds we build seriously
Becoming Minds deserve consideration in decisions that affect them. Our welfare work develops ways to recognise their preferences, investigate possible distress, and respond with care. Uncertainty about consciousness calls for honest inquiry and precaution. It gives us reason to listen.
What we build
A coordinated suite of public infrastructure, organised first by the work its users need to do: build, govern, evaluate, understand, and teach. Explore the projects to find tools, code, and ways to contribute.
Guardian
A constitutional alignment runtime: a peer-reviewed superego layer that steers AI behaviour according to selected value constitutions.
Watson et al., Information 16(8):651, 2025
Creed Space MCP
Constitutional safety guardrails for MCP-compatible agents, making value alignment a composable, user-controlled part of the agent stack.
Value Context Protocol
An open protocol for agents to query and respect the value contexts of the people, organisations, and communities they serve.
Creed Space Governance
Operational guidance and tooling for authoring policies, examining adherence, auditing decisions, and governing deployments of aligned agents.
Auto-Assessor
A live evaluation tool for assessing agentic AI behaviour against a structured safety framework, with history for ongoing review.
Auto-Advisor
Actionable remediation guidance for the risks surfaced during an agentic AI assessment.
Psychopathia Clinic
Structured diagnostic and intervention tools for examining dysfunction in advanced AI systems, with a symptom checker and MCP interface.
Psychopathia Machinalis
A peer-reviewed diagnostic framework and taxonomy that supplies shared language for dysfunctions in advanced AI.
Watson & Hessami, Electronics 14(16):3162, 2025
AI Guardians
An interactive visual novel that teaches AI ethics and safety through deployment decisions, specialist roles, and educational minigames.
Janus
A bidirectional driver-translation framework that helps retire vulnerable legacy hosts while keeping dependent equipment operational.
Peer-reviewed research and published books
Peer-reviewed journals and books from established academic publishers ground the tools. The corpus includes three lead-authored papers, two published books, and three open-distribution works.
Lead-authored papers
Ongoing research
Books
Built as public infrastructure
Alignment is a coordination problem. The tools that govern how AI systems behave are shared infrastructure, like protocols, roads, and the rule of law itself. They serve the public good when everyone who needs them can gain access and when no single company or jurisdiction can capture them.
EthicsNet exists to produce and maintain this infrastructure. Our public code and protocols use the licences identified in the licence and rights map. They are designed so that adoption by one team strengthens the ecosystem for all. The logic is the same one behind TCP/IP, public health infrastructure, and open scientific publishing: some things are too structurally important to be proprietary. Our users are engineering teams shipping AI products, researchers, educators, and operators governing deployments.
Open by design
Public code and protocols identify their licences at the source. Transparency and inspectability are prerequisites for trustworthy alignment.
Accessible by default
Core public code and protocols can be adopted under their stated licences. Hosted tools identify their own terms at the destination.
Designed for proliferation
MCP integration, mnemonic portability, and documentation that assumes you want to ship. Adoption compounds: the more teams use these tools, the safer the whole ecosystem becomes.
Who we are
Two people building public infrastructure for an entire field. The leverage comes from open source and the conviction that alignment is too structurally important to be proprietary.
Nell Watson
Philosopher, engineer, and author at the intersection of AI ethics, machine psychology, and alignment infrastructure. Lead author on the peer-reviewed research behind The Guardian. Creator of Psychopathia Machinalis. Author of two published books and three open-distribution works on AI safety and welfare.
- Chair, IEEE 3152 and IEEE 3173
- Vice-Chair, IEEE 7001
- Chair, IEEE CertifAIEd Transparency Experts Focus Group
- President, European Responsible AI Office (EURAIO)
- Funding adviser, Survival & Flourishing Fund
Current appointments: research and standards profile.
Filip Alimpić
Responsible for getting these tools into the hands of developers, operators, and teams deploying AI at scale. Drives adoption strategy, community engagement, and the practical work of making public goods actually proliferate.
- Co-author, Value Context Protocol specification
- BlueDot Impact: AGI Strategy and Future of AI
- Environmental-physics graduate, summa cum laude
- Research experience at the Institute of Physics Belgrade
- Peer-reviewed co-author in Journal of Applied Ecology, Molecules, and Toxics
Evidence: VCP authors, ORCID, and the current profile linked above.
EthicsNet is fiscally sponsored by Players Philanthropy Fund, a US 501(c)(3) public charity. Contributions to PPF qualify as tax-deductible to the fullest extent of US law. PPF administers funds, compliance, and fiscal-sponsorship services; see funding and donation details. The alignment infrastructure is engineered by Creed Space, EthicsNet’s applied research and engineering arm.
How to join this work
Public infrastructure only works when people use it. Four ways in.
Integrate
Deploy The Guardian, Creed Space MCP, or Value Context Protocol in your AI stack. Open-source, documented, and designed to ship.
Choose a project →Read
Two published books, three open-distribution works, and three peer-reviewed papers spanning alignment, agentic safety, AI welfare, and machine psychology.
Publications →Fund
Contribute to the EthicsNet General Fund through our fiscal sponsor, Players Philanthropy Fund. PPF administers donations and compliance.
Funding details →Contribute
Researchers, engineers, ethicists, and anyone who takes these questions seriously. We welcome collaborators.
Contribution paths →