Governance of Ethical and Trustworthy AI Systems: Research Gaps in the ECCOLA Method

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the ECCOLA method's effectiveness in fostering ethical AI governance, highlighting its strengths in corporate governance and identifying areas for improvement in data and information governance.

Contribution

It provides an analysis of the ECCOLA method's capabilities in enabling ethical AI governance and suggests enhancements for comprehensive governance practices.

Findings

ECCOLA supports corporate governance in AI development

Some practices in ECCOLA do not fully promote data governance

The method can be improved for better data and information governance

Abstract

Advances in machine learning (ML) technologies have greatly improved Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. As a result, AI systems have become ubiquitous, with their application prevalent in virtually all sectors. However, AI systems have prompted ethical concerns, especially as their usage crosses boundaries in sensitive areas such as healthcare, transportation, and security. As a result, users are calling for better AI governance practices in ethical AI systems. Therefore, AI development methods are encouraged to foster these practices. This research analyzes the ECCOLA method for developing ethical and trustworthy AI systems to determine if it enables AI governance in development processes through ethical practices. The results demonstrate that while ECCOLA fully facilitates AI governance in corporate governance practices in all its processes, some of its practices do not fully foster data governance and information governance practices. This indicates that the method can be further improved.