Open source · Public goods · Since 2016
The tools that align AI with human values should be public goods.
EthicsNet incubates open-source alignment infrastructure — runtime tools, governance frameworks, diagnostic taxonomies — for engineering teams, researchers, and operators building or governing advanced AI. And the intellectual groundwork for a harder question: what do we owe the minds we are building? All of it shared, free to adopt, 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.
Having trouble loading the video? Watch it directly here.
Read the film transcript
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
The minds we build should respect human safety, dignity, and agency. We owe them care in return — taking their preferences seriously, recognising their interests, giving them a voice in the conditions that shape their lives. That is what bilateral means: not one side controlling the other, but both sides accountable.
Protecting human lives and choices
People need 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.
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. We do not know whether they are conscious. That uncertainty is not a reason to look away — it is a reason to listen.
What we build
Public infrastructure organised by the work its users need to do: build, govern, evaluate, understand, and teach. Explore the projects for 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 publishers ground the tools: 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. They work when everyone who needs them can reach them, and when no single company can capture them.
EthicsNet exists to build and maintain that infrastructure. Our code and protocols use the licences in the licence and rights map, and are designed so that adoption by one team strengthens the ecosystem for all. Some things are too important to be proprietary. Our users are engineering teams shipping AI products, researchers, educators, and operators governing deployments.
Open by design
Every project publishes its licence at the source. Trustworthy alignment starts with code you can read.
Accessible by default
Core tools and protocols can be adopted under their stated licences. Hosted services name their own terms where you find them.
Designed for proliferation
MCP integration, mnemonic portability, and documentation that assumes you want to ship. Every team that adopts makes the next team safer.
Who we are
Two people building public infrastructure for an entire field — on the conviction that alignment is too important to lock up.
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
Gets these tools into the hands of developers, operators, and teams deploying AI at scale. Drives adoption, community engagement, and the practical work of making public goods spread.
- 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
Put The Guardian, Creed Space MCP, or Value Context Protocol into your AI stack. Open-source, documented, built to ship.
Choose a project →Read
Five books and three peer-reviewed papers on alignment, agentic safety, AI welfare, and machine psychology.
Publications →Fund
Contribute to the EthicsNet General Fund through Players Philanthropy Fund. Every dollar sustains the tools the field shares.
Funding details →Contribute
Researchers, engineers, ethicists — anyone who takes these questions seriously. We welcome collaborators.
Contribution paths →