artificial intelligence

Linguistic Justice and Artificial Intelligence

AI Ethics in Industry: A Research Framework

Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems exert a growing influence on our society. As they become more ubiquitous, their potential negative impacts also become evident through various real-world incidents. Following such early incidents, academic and public discussion on AI ethics has highlighted the need for implementing ethics in AI system development. However, little currently exists in the way of frameworks for understanding the practical implementation of AI ethics. In this paper, we discuss a research framework for implementing AI ethics in industrial settings. The framework presents a starting point for empirical studies into AI ethics but is still being developed further based on its practical utilization.

Ethically Aligned Design of Autonomous Systems: Industry viewpoint and an empirical study

Progress in the field of artificial intelligence has been accelerating rapidly in the past two decades. Various autonomous systems from purely digital ones to autonomous vehicles are being developed and deployed out on the field. As these systems exert a growing impact on society, ethics in relation to artificial intelligence and autonomous systems have recently seen growing attention among the academia. However, the current literature on the topic has focused almost exclusively on theory and more specifically on conceptualization in the area. To widen the body of knowledge in the area, we conduct an empirical study on the current state of practice in artificial intelligence ethics. We do so by means of a multiple case study of five case companies, the results of which indicate a gap between research and practice in the area. Based on our findings we propose ways to tackle the gap.

Implementing Ethics in AI: An industrial multiple case study

Solutions in artificial intelligence (AI) are becoming increasingly widespread in system development endeavors. As the AI systems affect various stakeholders due to their unique nature, the growing influence of these systems calls for eth-ical considerations. Academic discussion and practical examples of autonomous system failures have highlighted the need for implementing ethics in software development. However, research on methods and tools for implementing ethics into AI system design and development in practice is still lacking. This paper be-gins to address this focal problem by providing a baseline for ethics in AI based software development. This is achieved by reporting results from an industrial multiple case study on AI systems development in the health care sector. In the context of this study, ethics were perceived as interplay of transparency, re-sponsibility and accountability, upon which research model is outlined. Through these cases, we explore the current state of practice out on the field in the ab-sence of formal methods and tools for ethically aligned design. Based on our data, we discuss the current state of practice and outline existing good practic-es, as well as suggest future research directions in the area.

Continuous experimentation on artificial intelligence software: a research agenda

Moving from experiments to industrial level AI software development requires a shift from understanding AI/ ML model attributes as a standalone experiment to know-how integrating and operating AI models in a large-scale software system. It is a growing demand for adopting state-of-the-art software engineering paradigms into AI development, so that the development efforts can be aligned with business strategies in a lean and fast-paced manner. We describe AI development as an “unknown unknown” problem where both business needs and AI models evolve over time. We describe a holistic view of an iterative, continuous approach to develop industrial AI software basing on business goals, requirements and Minimum Viable Products. From this, five areas of challenges are presented with the focus on experimentation. In the end, we propose a research agenda with seven questions for future studies.

Time for AI (Ethics) Maturity Model Is Now

There appears to be a common agreement that ethical concerns are of high importance when it comes to systems equipped with some sort of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Demands for ethical AI are declared from all directions. As a response, in recent years, public bodies, governments, and universities have rushed in to provide a set of principles to be considered when AI based systems are designed and used. We have learned, however, that high-level principles do not turn easily into actionable advice for practitioners. Hence, also companies are publishing their own ethical guidelines to guide their AI development. This paper argues that AI software is still software and needs to be approached from the software development perspective. The software engineering paradigm has introduced maturity model thinking, which provides a roadmap for companies to improve their performance from the selected viewpoints known as the key capabilities. We want to voice out a call for action for the development of a maturity model for AI software. We wish to discuss whether the focus should be on AI ethics or, more broadly, the quality of an AI system, called a maturity model for the development of AI systems.

The Key Concepts of Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

The growing influence and decision-making capacities of Autonomous systems and Artificial Intelligence in our lives force us to consider the values embedded in these systems. But how ethics should be implemented into these systems? In this study, the solution is seen on philosophical conceptualization as a framework to form practical implementation model for ethics of AI. To take the first steps on conceptualization main concepts used on the field needs to be identified. A keyword based Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) on the keywords used in AI and ethics was conducted to help in identifying, defying and comparing main concepts used in current AI ethics discourse. Out of 1062 papers retrieved SMS discovered 37 re-occurring keywords in 83 academic papers. We suggest that the focus on finding keywords is the first step in guiding and providing direction for future research in the AI ethics field.

Ethically Aligned Design: An Empirical Evaluation of the RESOLVEDD-Strategy in Software and Systems Development Context

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) in human contexts calls for ethical considerations for the design and development of AI-based systems. However, little knowledge currently exists on how to provide useful and tangible tools that could help software developers and designers implement ethical considerations into practice. In this paper, we empirically evaluate a method that enables ethically aligned design in a decision-making process. Though this method, titled the RESOLVEDD strategy, originates from the field of business ethics, it is being applied in other fields as well. We tested the RESOLVEDD strategy in a multiple case study of five student projects where the use of ethical tools was given as one of the design requirements. A key finding from the study indicates that simply the presence of an ethical tool has an effect on ethical consideration, creating more responsibility even in instances where the use of the tool is not intrinsically motivated.

ECCOLA - a Method for Implementing Ethically Aligned AI Systems

Various recent Artificial Intelligence (AI) system failures, some of which have made the global headlines, have highlighted issues in these systems. These failures have resulted in calls for more ethical AI systems that better take into account their effects on various stakeholders. However, implementing AI ethics into practice is still an on-going challenge. High-level guidelines for doing so exist, devised by governments and private organizations alike, but lack practicality for developers. To address this issue, in this paper, we present a method for implementing AI ethics. The method, ECCOLA, has been iteratively developed using a cyclical action design research approach. The method aims at making the high-level AI ethics principles more practical, making it possible for developers to more easily implement them in practice.

A Multiple Case Study of Artificial Intelligent System Development in Industry

There is a rapidly increasing amount of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems developed in recent years, with much expectation on its capacity of innovation and business value generation. However, the promised value of AI systems in specific business contexts might not be understood, and further integrated into the development processes. We wanted to understand how software engineering processes and practices can be applied to develop AI systems in a fast-faced, business-driven manner. As the first step, we explored contextual factors of AI development and the connections between AI developments to business opportunities. We conducted 12 semi-structured interviews in seven companies in Brazil, Norway and Southeast Asia. Our investigation revealed different types of AI systems and different AI development approaches. However, it is common that business opportunities involving with AI systems are not validated and there is lack of business-driven metrics that guide the development of AI systems. The findings have implications for future research on business-driven AI development and supporting tools and practices.

Preface of RESET 2023: 2nd International Workshop on Requirement Engineering for Software Startups and Emerging Technologies

The Second International Workshop on Requirement Engineering for Software startups and Emerging Technologies (RESET) is a part of the 31st IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference 2023, held on 4 September 2023. The workshop brought together requirements engineering researchers and practitioners to discuss the need for adapting conventional requirement engineering artifacts (i.e., requirement definition, metrics), processes and practices in developing and operating emerging technologies, including Software Startups, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain, and Quantum Computing. Participants gained insights into the RE practices, tools, techniques, and frameworks that can help them build scalable, robust, and innovative software-intensive systems. The workshop included a keynote presentation and four paper presentations.

Experimenting with Multi-Agent Software Development: Towards a Unified Platform

Large language models are redefining software engineering by implementing AI-powered techniques throughout the whole software development process, including requirement gathering, software architecture, code generation, testing, and deployment. However, it is still difficult to develop a cohesive platform that consistently produces the best outcomes across all stages. The objective of this study is to develop a unified platform that utilizes multiple artificial intelligence agents to automate the process of transforming user requirements into well-organized deliverables. These deliverables include user stories, prioritization, and UML sequence diagrams, along with the modular approach to APIs, unit tests, and end-to-end tests. Additionally, the platform will organize tasks, perform security and compliance, and suggest design patterns and improvements for non-functional requirements. We allow users to control and manage each phase according to their preferences. In addition, the platform provides security and compliance checks following European standards and proposes design optimizations. We use multiple models, such as GPT-3.5, GPT-4, and Llama3 to enable to generation of modular code as per user choice. The research also highlights the limitations and future research discussions to overall improve the software development life cycle. The source code for our uniform platform is hosted on GitHub, enabling additional experimentation and supporting both research and practical uses. \end