A4 Article in conference proceedings
How Do Software Companies Deal with Artificial Intelligence Ethics? : A Gap Analysis (2022)

Vakkuri, V., Kemell, K.-K., Tolvanen, J., Jantunen, M., Halme, E., & Abrahamsson, P. (2022). How Do Software Companies Deal with Artificial Intelligence Ethics? : A Gap Analysis. In M. Staron, C. Berger, J. Simmonds, & R. Prikladnicki (Eds.), EASE 2022 : The International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (pp. 100-109). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3530019.3530030

JYU authors or editors

Publication details

All authors or editors: Vakkuri, Ville; Kemell, Kai-Kristian; Tolvanen, Joel; Jantunen, Marianna; Halme, Erika; Abrahamsson, Pekka

Parent publication: EASE 2022 : The International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering

Parent publication editors: Staron, Miroslaw; Berger, Christian; Simmonds, Jocelyn; Prikladnicki, Rafael

Place and date of conference: New York, NY, United States, 13.-15.6.2022

ISBN: 978-1-4503-9613-4

Publication year: 2022

Publication date: 13/06/2022

Pages range: 100-109

Publisher: ACM

Place of Publication: New York

Publication country: United States

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3530019.3530030

Publication open access: Openly available

Publication channel open access: Partially open access channel

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/86157

Abstract

The public and academic discussion on Artificial Intelligence (AI) ethics is accelerating and the general public is becoming more aware AI ethics issues such as data privacy in these systems. To guide ethical development of AI systems, governmental and institutional actors, as well as companies, have drafted various guidelines for ethical AI. Though these guidelines are becoming increasingly common, they have been criticized for a lack of impact on industrial practice. There seems to be a gap between research and practice in the area, though its exact nature remains unknown. In this paper, we present a gap analysis of the current state of the art by comparing practices of 39 companies that work with AI systems to the seven key requirements for trustworthy AI presented in the “The Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence”. The key finding of this paper is that there is indeed notable gap between AI ethics guidelines and practice. Especially practices considering the novel requirements for software development, requirements of societal and environmental well-being and diversity, nondiscrimination and fairness were not tackled by companies.

Keywords: artificial intelligence; system design; ethics; software development; software engineering; information technology companies

Free keywords: software companies; artificial intelligence; ethics

Contributing organizations

Ministry reporting: Yes

VIRTA submission year: 2022

JUFO rating: 1