Co-Constructing Alignment

Abstract

As AI systems become embedded in everyday practice, value misalignment has emerged as a pressing concern. Yet, dominant alignment approaches remain model-centric, treating users as passive recipients of pre-specified values rather than as epistemic agents who encounter and respond to misalignment during interactions. Drawing on situated perspectives, we frame alignment as an interactional practice co-constructed during human-AI interaction. We investigate how users understand and wish to contribute to this process through a participatory workshop that combines misalignment diaries with generative design activities. We surface how misalignments materialise in practice and how users envision acting on them, grounded in the context of researchers using Large Language Models as research assistants. Our findings show that misalignments are experienced less as abstract ethical violations than as unexpected responses, and task or social breakdowns. Participants articulated roles ranging from adjusting and interpreting model behaviour to deliberate non-engagement as an alignment strategy. We conclude with implications for system design that supports alignment as ongoing, situated, and shared practice.