The participatory value-sensitive design (VSD) of a mHealth app targeting citizens with dementia in a Danish municipality

The Sammen Om Demens (together for dementia), a citizen science project developing and implementing an AI-based smartphone app targeting citizens with dementia, is presented as an illustrative case of ethical, applied AI entailing interdisciplinary collaborations and inclusive and participative scientific practices engaging citizens, end users, and potential recipients of technological-digital innovation. Accordingly, the participatory Value-Sensitive Design of the smartphone app (a tracking device) is explored and explained across all of its phases (conceptual, empirical, and technical). Namely, from value construction and value elicitation to the delivery, after various iterations engaging both expert and non-expert stakeholders, of an embodied prototype built on and tailored to their values. The emphasis is on how moral dilemmas and value conflicts, often resulting from diverse people’s needs or vested interests, have been resolved in practice to deliver a unique digital artifact with moral imagination that fulfills vital ethical–social desiderata without undermining technical efficiency. The result is an AI-based tool for the management and care of dementia that can be considered more ethical and democratic, since it meaningfully reflects diverse citizens' values and expectations on the app. In the conclusion, we suggest that the co-design methodology outlined in this study is suitable to generate more explainable and trustworthy AI, and also, it helps to advance towards technical-digital innovation holding a human face.