Accounting Value Effects for Responsible Networking

Networking offers an interesting standpoint to discuss aspects of responsible computing. The focus on a single high-level task (to provide secure and reliable end-to-end communications), and other characteristics such as resource/load distribution and decentralization of control, are fruitful properties to bring to the foreground fundamental dimensions which are generally overlooked in the responsible AI discourse: the pluralism of policies that may be in place, of expectations that may be taken into account, of their mechanisms of production and update, and their entrenchment in operationalization. Elaborating on a recent proposal on responsible Internet, the paper aims to provide a wider view of what is needed for networking to become a responsible type of computing, providing arguments for an architecture accounting for dynamic higher-level policies and expectation artefacts.