Ethical Requirements in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Systematic Literature Review
Resumo
Context: Software developers and users are growing concerned about the ethical use of software, especially with Artificial Intelligence (AI). In this context, we investigated how ethical requirements can be elicited and incorporated into software development. Problem: The challenge is identifying and defining effective methods for eliciting and managing ethical requirements in software development. Solution: We conducted a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) to identify techniques, methods, processes, frameworks, and tools for eliciting, analyzing, and specifying ethical requirements. IS Theory: We explore the application of theories related to requirements engineering, ethics in technology, and data governance. It focuses, in particular, on ensuring that information systems comply with ethical and legal principles from the beginning of the development cycle. Method: Following the Kitchenham and Charters protocol, we conducted an SLR with stages of planning, conducting, and reporting the results. Summarization of Results: We have identified 47 primary studies. These studies address different approaches to eliciting ethical requirements, including techniques based on user stories, analysis of ethical guidelines, specific frameworks such as ECCOLA, and methods such as interviews and modeling. Contributions and Impact on the IS area: The report contributes to the field by consolidating existing practices in the literature regarding ethical requirements. It provides a comprehensive overview of the techniques and tools available for integrating ethical considerations into software systems and identifies gaps and opportunities for future research. The study significantly impacts the IS field by providing practical and theoretical guidelines for eliciting ethical requirements in information systems.
Palavras-chave:
Ethical Requirements, Requirements Elicitation, Systematic Literature Review
Referências
Mamia Agbese, Rahul Mohanani, Arif Ali Khan, and Pekka Abrahamsson. 2023. Implementing AI Ethics: Making Sense of the Ethical Requirements. In Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering, EASE 2023. ACM, DOI: 10.1145/3593434.3593453, 62–71.
Anonymous Anonymous. 2024. Ethical Requirements in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.14183399
Nagadivya Balasubramaniam, Marjo Kauppinen, Kari Hiekkanen, and Sari Kujala. 2022. Transparency and Explainability of AI Systems: Ethical Guidelines in Practice. In Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality - 28th International Working Conference, REFSQ 2022, Vol. 13216. Springer, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-98464-9_1, 3–18.
Nagadivya Balasubramaniam, Marjo Kauppinen, Antti Rannisto, Kari Hiekkanen, and Sari Kujala. 2023. Transparency and explainability of AI systems: From ethical guidelines to requirements. Inf. Softw. Technol. 159 (2023), 107197.
Hrvoje Belani, Marin Vukovic, and Zeljka Car. 2019. Requirements Engineering Challenges in Building AI-Based Complex Systems. In 27th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference Workshops, RE 2019 Workshops, Jeju Island, Korea (South), 2019. IEEE, DOI: 10.1109/REW.2019.00051, 252–255.
Seblewongel E. Biable, Nuno M. Garcia, and Dida Midekso. 2023. Proposed Ethical Framework for Software Requirements Engineering. IET Software 17, 4 (2023), 526–537. DOI: 10.1049/sfw2.12136
Edna Dias Canedo, Angélica Toffano Seidel Calazans, Ian Nery Bandeira, Pedro Henrique Teixeira Costa, and Eloisa Toffano Seidel Masson. 2022. Guidelines adopted by agile teams in privacy requirements elicitation after the Brazilian general data protection law (LGPD) implementation. RE 27, 4 (2022), 545–567.
José Antonio Siqueira de Cerqueira, Anayran Pinheiro De Azevedo, Heloise Acco Tives Leão, and Edna Dias Canedo. 2022. Guide for Artificial Intelligence Ethical Requirements Elicitation - RE4AI Ethical Guide. In 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2022, Virtual Event / Maui, Hawaii, USA, January 4-7, 2022. ScholarSpace, [link], 1–10.
José Antonio Siqueira de Cerqueira, Heloise Acco Tives Leão, and Edna Dias Canedo. 2021. Ethical Guidelines and Principles in the Context of Artificial Intelligence. In SBSI 2021: XVII Brazilian Symposium on Information Systems, Uberlândia, Brazil, June 7 - 10, 2021. ACM, DOI: 10.1145/3466933.3466969, 36:1–36:8.
Sandra Fabbri, Cleiton Silva, Elis Hernandes, Fábio Octaviano, André Di Thommazo, and Anderson Belgamo. 2016. Improvements in the StArt tool to better support the systematic review process. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (Limerick, Ireland) (EASE ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 21, 5 pages.
Renata S. S. Guizzardi, Glenda Carla Moura Amaral, Giancarlo Guizzardi, and John Mylopoulos. 2020. Ethical Requirements for AI Systems. In Advances in Artificial Intelligence - 33rd Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Canadian AI 2020, Ottawa, ON, Canada (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 12109). Springer, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-47358-7_24, 251–256.
IEEE Std 7000-2021. 2021. IEEE Standard Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns during System Design. IEEE Std 7000-2021 (2021), 1–82. DOI: 10.1109/IEEESTD.2021.9536679
Arif Ali Khan, Muhammad Azeem Akbar, Mahdi Fahmideh, Peng Liang, Muhammad Waseem, Aakash Ahmad, Mahmood Niazi, and Pekka Abrahamsson. 2023. AI Ethics: An Empirical Study on the Views of Practitioners and Lawmakers. IEEE Trans. Comput. Soc. Syst. 10, 6 (2023), 2971–2984.
Barbara Kitchenham. 2004. Procedures for performing systematic reviews. Keele, UK, Keele University 33, 2004 (2004), 1–26.
B. Kitchenham and S. Charters. 2007. Guidelines for performing systematic literature reviews in software engineering. Technical Report Technical Report EBSE 2007-001. School of Computer Science and Mathematics, Keele University / School of Computer Science and Mathematics, Keele University.
Olga Levina. 2024. Incorporating Ethical Aspects in Information Systems Requirements Engineering. In Perspectives in Business Informatics Research - 23rd International Conference on Business Informatics Research, BIR 2024, Prague, Czech Republic (Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, Vol. 529). Springer, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-71333-0_10, 153–161.
Paul N. Otto and Annie I. Antón. 2007. Addressing Legal Requirements in Requirements Engineering. In 15th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, RE 2007, October 15-19th, 2007, New Delhi, India. IEEE Computer Society, DOI: 10.1109/RE.2007.65, 5–14.
Kai Petersen, Sairam Vakkalanka, and Ludwik Kuzniarz. 2015. Guidelines for conducting systematic mapping studies in software engineering: An update. Information and software technology 64 (2015), 1–18.
General Data Protection Regulation. 2018. General data protection regulation (GDPR). Intersoft Consulting, Accessed in October 24, 1 (2018).
Errikos Siakas, Harjinder Rahanu, Joanna Loveday, Elli Georgiadou, Kerstin Siakas, and Margaret Ross. 2023. Managing Ethical Requirements Elicitation. In Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement. Vol. 1890. Springer Nature Switzerland, Cham, 258–272.
Heidi Vainio-Pekka, Mamia Ori-Otse Agbese, Marianna Jantunen, Ville Vakkuri, Tommi Mikkonen, Rebekah Rousi, and Pekka Abrahamsson. 2023. The Role of Explainable AI in the Research Field of AI Ethics. ACM Trans. Interact. Intell. Syst. 13, 4, Article 26 (Dec. 2023), 39 pages. DOI: 10.1145/3599974
Andreas Vogelsang and Markus Borg. 2019. Requirements Engineering for Machine Learning: Perspectives from Data Scientists. In 27th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference Workshops, RE 2019 Workshops, Jeju Island, Korea (South). IEEE, DOI: 10.1109/REW.2019.00050, 245–251.
Xin Zhou, Yuqin Jin, He Zhang, Shanshan Li, and Xin Huang. 2016. A Map of Threats to Validity of Systematic Literature Reviews in Software Engineering. In 2016 23rd Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC). 153–160. DOI: 10.1109/APSEC.2016.031
Anonymous Anonymous. 2024. Ethical Requirements in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.14183399
Nagadivya Balasubramaniam, Marjo Kauppinen, Kari Hiekkanen, and Sari Kujala. 2022. Transparency and Explainability of AI Systems: Ethical Guidelines in Practice. In Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality - 28th International Working Conference, REFSQ 2022, Vol. 13216. Springer, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-98464-9_1, 3–18.
Nagadivya Balasubramaniam, Marjo Kauppinen, Antti Rannisto, Kari Hiekkanen, and Sari Kujala. 2023. Transparency and explainability of AI systems: From ethical guidelines to requirements. Inf. Softw. Technol. 159 (2023), 107197.
Hrvoje Belani, Marin Vukovic, and Zeljka Car. 2019. Requirements Engineering Challenges in Building AI-Based Complex Systems. In 27th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference Workshops, RE 2019 Workshops, Jeju Island, Korea (South), 2019. IEEE, DOI: 10.1109/REW.2019.00051, 252–255.
Seblewongel E. Biable, Nuno M. Garcia, and Dida Midekso. 2023. Proposed Ethical Framework for Software Requirements Engineering. IET Software 17, 4 (2023), 526–537. DOI: 10.1049/sfw2.12136
Edna Dias Canedo, Angélica Toffano Seidel Calazans, Ian Nery Bandeira, Pedro Henrique Teixeira Costa, and Eloisa Toffano Seidel Masson. 2022. Guidelines adopted by agile teams in privacy requirements elicitation after the Brazilian general data protection law (LGPD) implementation. RE 27, 4 (2022), 545–567.
José Antonio Siqueira de Cerqueira, Anayran Pinheiro De Azevedo, Heloise Acco Tives Leão, and Edna Dias Canedo. 2022. Guide for Artificial Intelligence Ethical Requirements Elicitation - RE4AI Ethical Guide. In 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, HICSS 2022, Virtual Event / Maui, Hawaii, USA, January 4-7, 2022. ScholarSpace, [link], 1–10.
José Antonio Siqueira de Cerqueira, Heloise Acco Tives Leão, and Edna Dias Canedo. 2021. Ethical Guidelines and Principles in the Context of Artificial Intelligence. In SBSI 2021: XVII Brazilian Symposium on Information Systems, Uberlândia, Brazil, June 7 - 10, 2021. ACM, DOI: 10.1145/3466933.3466969, 36:1–36:8.
Sandra Fabbri, Cleiton Silva, Elis Hernandes, Fábio Octaviano, André Di Thommazo, and Anderson Belgamo. 2016. Improvements in the StArt tool to better support the systematic review process. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (Limerick, Ireland) (EASE ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 21, 5 pages.
Renata S. S. Guizzardi, Glenda Carla Moura Amaral, Giancarlo Guizzardi, and John Mylopoulos. 2020. Ethical Requirements for AI Systems. In Advances in Artificial Intelligence - 33rd Canadian Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Canadian AI 2020, Ottawa, ON, Canada (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 12109). Springer, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-47358-7_24, 251–256.
IEEE Std 7000-2021. 2021. IEEE Standard Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns during System Design. IEEE Std 7000-2021 (2021), 1–82. DOI: 10.1109/IEEESTD.2021.9536679
Arif Ali Khan, Muhammad Azeem Akbar, Mahdi Fahmideh, Peng Liang, Muhammad Waseem, Aakash Ahmad, Mahmood Niazi, and Pekka Abrahamsson. 2023. AI Ethics: An Empirical Study on the Views of Practitioners and Lawmakers. IEEE Trans. Comput. Soc. Syst. 10, 6 (2023), 2971–2984.
Barbara Kitchenham. 2004. Procedures for performing systematic reviews. Keele, UK, Keele University 33, 2004 (2004), 1–26.
B. Kitchenham and S. Charters. 2007. Guidelines for performing systematic literature reviews in software engineering. Technical Report Technical Report EBSE 2007-001. School of Computer Science and Mathematics, Keele University / School of Computer Science and Mathematics, Keele University.
Olga Levina. 2024. Incorporating Ethical Aspects in Information Systems Requirements Engineering. In Perspectives in Business Informatics Research - 23rd International Conference on Business Informatics Research, BIR 2024, Prague, Czech Republic (Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, Vol. 529). Springer, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-71333-0_10, 153–161.
Paul N. Otto and Annie I. Antón. 2007. Addressing Legal Requirements in Requirements Engineering. In 15th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, RE 2007, October 15-19th, 2007, New Delhi, India. IEEE Computer Society, DOI: 10.1109/RE.2007.65, 5–14.
Kai Petersen, Sairam Vakkalanka, and Ludwik Kuzniarz. 2015. Guidelines for conducting systematic mapping studies in software engineering: An update. Information and software technology 64 (2015), 1–18.
General Data Protection Regulation. 2018. General data protection regulation (GDPR). Intersoft Consulting, Accessed in October 24, 1 (2018).
Errikos Siakas, Harjinder Rahanu, Joanna Loveday, Elli Georgiadou, Kerstin Siakas, and Margaret Ross. 2023. Managing Ethical Requirements Elicitation. In Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement. Vol. 1890. Springer Nature Switzerland, Cham, 258–272.
Heidi Vainio-Pekka, Mamia Ori-Otse Agbese, Marianna Jantunen, Ville Vakkuri, Tommi Mikkonen, Rebekah Rousi, and Pekka Abrahamsson. 2023. The Role of Explainable AI in the Research Field of AI Ethics. ACM Trans. Interact. Intell. Syst. 13, 4, Article 26 (Dec. 2023), 39 pages. DOI: 10.1145/3599974
Andreas Vogelsang and Markus Borg. 2019. Requirements Engineering for Machine Learning: Perspectives from Data Scientists. In 27th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference Workshops, RE 2019 Workshops, Jeju Island, Korea (South). IEEE, DOI: 10.1109/REW.2019.00050, 245–251.
Xin Zhou, Yuqin Jin, He Zhang, Shanshan Li, and Xin Huang. 2016. A Map of Threats to Validity of Systematic Literature Reviews in Software Engineering. In 2016 23rd Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC). 153–160. DOI: 10.1109/APSEC.2016.031
Publicado
19/05/2025
Como Citar
PORTO, Daniel de Paula; PRADO, Renata De Castro Vianna; MARQUES, Gilmar dos Santos; SERRANO, André Luiz Marques; MENDONÇA, Fabio L. L. de; CANEDO, Edna Dias.
Ethical Requirements in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Systematic Literature Review. In: SIMPÓSIO BRASILEIRO DE SISTEMAS DE INFORMAÇÃO (SBSI), 21. , 2025, Recife/PE.
Anais [...].
Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação,
2025
.
p. 663-672.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/sbsi.2025.246613.