trustworthy-ai/trustworthy-ai.tex

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\begin{document}

\title{Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence}
\author{Tobias Eidelpes}
\authorrunning{T. Eidelpes}

\institute{Technische Universität Wien, Karlsplatz 13, 1040 Wien, Austria
\email{e1527193@student.tuwien.ac.at}}

\maketitle

\begin{abstract}
The abstract should briefly summarize the contents of the paper in
150--250 words.

\keywords{Artificial Intelligence, Trustworthiness, Social Computing}
\end{abstract}


\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:introduction}

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in computing has seen an unprecedented
rise over the last few years. From humble beginnings as a tool to aid humans in
decision making to advanced use cases where human interaction is avoided as much
as possible, AI has transformed the way we live our lives today. The
transformative capabilities of AI are not just felt in the area of computer
science, but have bled into a diverse set of other disciplines such as biology,
chemistry, mathematics and economics. For the purposes of this work, AIs are
machines that can learn, take decision autonomously and interact with the
environment~\cite{russellArtificialIntelligenceModern2021}.

While the possibilities of AI are seemingly endless, the public is slowly but
steadily learning about its limitations. These limitations manifest themselves
in areas such as autonomous driving and medicine, for example. These are fields
where AI can have a direct---potentially life-changing---impact on people's
lives. A self-driving car operates on roads where accidents can happen at any
time. Decisions made by the car before, during and after the accident can result
in severe consequences for all participants. In medicine, AIs are increasingly
used to drive human decision-making. The more critical the proper use and
functioning of AI is, the more trust in its architecture and results is
required. Trust, however, is not easily defined, especially in relation to
artificial intelligence. 

This work will explore the following question: \emph{Can artificial intelligence
be trustworthy, and if so, how?} To be able to discuss this question, trust has
to be defined and dissected into its constituent components.
Chapter~\ref{sec:modeling-trust} analyzes trust and molds the gained insights
into a framework suitable for interactions between humans and artificial
intelligence. Chapter~\ref{sec:taxonomy} approaches trustworthiness in
artificial intelligence from a computing perspective. There are various ways to
make AIs more \emph{trustworthy} through the use of technical means. This
chapter seeks to discuss and summarize important methods and approaches.
Chapter~\ref{sec:social-computing} discusses combining humans and artificial
intelligence into one coherent system which is capable of achieving more than
either of its parts on their own.


\section{Trust}
\label{sec:modeling-trust}

In order to be able to define the requirements and goals of \emph{trustworthy
AI}, it is important to know what trust is and how we humans establish trust
with someone or something. This section therefore defines and explores different
forms of trust.

\subsection{Defining Trust}

Commonly, \emph{trusting someone} means to have confidence in another person's
ability to do certain things. This can mean that we trust someone to speak the
truth to us or that a person is competently doing the things that we
\emph{entrust} them to do. We trust the person delivering the mail that they do
so on time and without mail getting lost on the way to our doors. We trust
people knowledgeable in a certain field such as medicine to be able to advise us
when we need medical advice. Trusting in these contexts means to cede control
over a particular aspect of our lives to someone else. We do so in expectation
that the trustee does not violate our \emph{social agreement} by acting against
our interests. Often times we are not able to confirm that the trustee has
indeed done his/her job. Sometimes we will only find out later that what did
happen was not in line with our own interests. Trust is therefore also always a
function of time. Previously entrusted people can---depending on their track
record---either continue to be trusted or lose trust.

We do not only trust certain people to act on our behalf, we can also place
trust in things rather than people. Every technical device or gadget receives
our trust to some extent, because we expect it to do the things we expect it to
do. This relationship encompasses \emph{dumb} devices such as vacuum cleaners
and refrigerators, as well as \emph{intelligent} systems such as algorithms
performing medical diagnoses. Artificial intelligence systems belong to the
latter category when they are functioning well, but can easily slip into the
former in the case of a poorly trained machine learning algorithm that simply
classifies pictures of dogs and cats always as dogs, for example.

Scholars usually divide trust either into \emph{cognitive} or
\emph{non-cognitive} forms. While cognitive trust involves some sort of rational
and objective evaluation of the trustee's capabilities, non-cognitive trust
lacks such an evaluation. For instance, if a patient comes to a doctor with a
health problem which resides in the doctor's domain, the patient will place
trust in the doctor because of the doctor's experience, track record and
education. The patient, thus consciously, decides that he/she would rather trust
the doctor to solve the problem and not a friend who does not have any
expertise. Conversely, non-cognitive trust allows humans to place trust in
people they know well, without a need for rational justification, but just
because of their existing relationship.

Due to the different dimensions of trust and its inherent complexity in
different contexts, frameworks for trust are an active field of research. One
such framework---proposed by \textcite{ferrarioAIWeTrust2020}---will be
discussed in the following sections.

\subsection{Incremental Model of Trust}

The framework by \textcite{ferrarioAIWeTrust2020} consists of three types of
trust: simple trust, reflective trust and paradigmatic trust. Their model thus
consists of the triple 

\[ T = \langle\text{simple trust}, \text{reflective trust}, \text{paradigmatic
    trust}\rangle \]

\noindent and a 5-tuple

\[ \langle X, Y, A, G, C\rangle \]

\noindent where $X$ and $Y$ denote interacting agents and $A$ the action to be
performed by the agent $Y$ to achieve goal $G$. $C$ stands for the context in
which the action takes place.

\subsubsection{Simple Trust} is a non-cognitive form of trust and the least
demanding form of trust in the incremental model. $X$ trusts $Y$ to perform an
action $A$ to pursue the goal $G$ without requiring additional information about
$Y$'s ability to generate a satisfactory outcome. In other words, $X$
\emph{depends} on $Y$ to perform an action. $X$ has no control over the process
and also does not want to control it or the outcome. A lot of day-to-day
interactions happen in some form or another under simple trust: we (simply)
trust a stranger on the street to show us the right way when we are lost.
Sometimes simple trust is unavoidable because of the trustor's inability to
obtain additional information about the other party. Children, for example, have
to simply trust adults not because they want to but out of necessity. This
changes when they get older and develop their ability to better judge other
people.

\subsubsection{Reflective Trust} adds an additional layer to the simple trust
model: trustworthiness. Trustworthiness can be defined as the cognitive belief
of $X$ that $Y$ is trustworthy. Reflective trust involves a cognitive process
which allows a trustor to obtain reasons for trusting a potential trustee. $X$
believes in the trustworthiness of $Y$ because there are reasons for $Y$ being
trustworthy. Contrary to simple trust, reflective trust includes the aspect of
control. For an agent $X$ to \emph{reflectively} trust another agent $Y$, $X$
has objective reasons to trust $Y$ but is not willing to do so without control.
Reflective trust does not have to be expressed in binary form but can also be
expressed by a subjective measure of confidence. The more likely a trustee $Y$
is to perform action $A$ towards a goal $G$, the higher $X$'s confidence in $Y$
is. Additionally, $X$ might have high reflective trust in $Y$ but still does not
trust $Y$ to perform a given task because of other, potentially unconscious,
reasons. 

\subsubsection{Pragmatic Trust} is the last form of trust in the incremental
model proposed by \cite{ferrarioAIWeTrust2020}. In addition to having objective
reasons to trust $Y$, $X$ is also willing to do so without control. It is thus a
combination of simple trust and reflective trust. Simple trust provides the
non-cognitive, non-controlling aspect of trust and reflective trust provides the
cognitive aspect.

\subsection{Application of the Model}

Since the incremental model of trust can be applied to human-human as well as
human-AI interactions, an example which draws from both domains will be
presented. The setting is that of a company which ships tailor-made machine
learning (ML) solutions to other firms. On the human-human interaction side
there are multiple teams working on different aspects of the software. The
hierarchical structure between bosses, their team leaders and their developers
is composed of different forms of trust. A boss has worked with a specific team
leader in the past and thus knows from experience that the team leader can be
trusted without control (paradigmatic trust). The team leader has had this
particular team for a number of projects already but has recently hired a new
junior developer. The team leader has some objective proof that the new hire is
capable of delivering good work on time due to impressive credentials but needs
more time to be able to trust the new colleague without control (reflective
trust).

On the human-AI side, one developer is working on a machine learning algorithm
to achieve a specific goal $G$. Taking the 5-tuple from the incremental model,
$X$ is the developer, $Y$ is the machine learning algorithm and $A$ is the
action the machine learning algorithm takes to achieve the goal $G$. In the
beginning, $X$ does not yet trust $Y$ to do its job properly. This is due to an
absence of any past performance metric of the algorithm to achieve $G$. While
most, if not all, parameters of $Y$ have to be controlled by $X$ in the
beginning, there is less and less control needed if $Y$ achieves $G$
consistently. This also increases the cognitive trust in $Y$ as time goes on due
to accurate performance metrics.

\section{Computational Aspects of Trustworthy AI}
\label{sec:taxonomy}

While there have been rapid advances in the quality of machine learning models
and neural networks, scholars, the public and policymakers are increasingly
recognizing the dangers of artificial intelligence. Concerns about privacy and
methods for deanonymizing individual data points to discrimination through
learned biases and environmental impacts have prompted a new area of research
which is focused on altering the models to alleviate these concerns. A recent
survey by \textcite{liuTrustworthyAIComputational2021} summarizes the state of
the art in trustworthy AI research. The authors collect research from a
computational perspective and divide it into six categories: safety and
robustness, non-discrimination and fairness, explainability, privacy,
accountability and auditability and environmental well-being. The following
sections summarize the computational methods for each category.

\subsection{Safety and Robustness}

Machine learning models should be able to give robust results even in the face
of adversarial attacks or naturally occurring noise in the training data. It has
been shown that even small perturbations in the training set can affect the
quality of the model disproportionately \cite{madryDeepLearningModels2019}. In
order to build models which retain their accuracy and general performance even
under less than ideal circumstances, it is necessary to study different forms of
attacks and how to defend against them. Safe and robust models lead to increases
in trustworthiness because beneficiaries can more easily depend on their
results (reflective trust).

\subsubsection{Threat models} model by which method an attacker manages to break
the performance of a particular machine learning algorithm. \emph{Poisoning
attacks} allow an attacker to intentionally introduce bad samples into the
training set which results in wrong predictions by the model. While many models
are trained beforehand, other models are constantly being updated by data that
the model receives from its beneficiaries. One such example may be Netflix'
movie recommendation system that receives which type of movies certain users are
interested in. A malicious user could therefore attack the recommendation engine
by supplying wrong inputs. \emph{Evasion attacks} consist of alterations which
are made to the training samples in such a way that these alternations---while
generally invisible to the human eye---mislead the algorithm.

\emph{White-box attacks} allow an attacker to clearly see all parameters and all
functions of a model. \emph{Black-box attackers}, on the other hand, can only
give inputs to the model and obtain the outputs. The former type of attack is
generally easier to carry out.

\emph{Targeted attacks} are aimed at specific classes of a machine learning
classifier for example. Suppose a model is trained to recognize facial features.
In a targeted attack, an attacker would try to feed inputs to the model such
that just one person is consistently incorrectly classified. This type of attack
is in contrast to \emph{non-targeted attacks} which seek to undermine the
model's performance in general. Targeted attacks are usually much harder to
detect as the predictions are correct overall but incorrect for a tiny subset.

\subsubsection{Defenses against adversarial attacks} are specific to the domain
a model is working in. \textcite{xuAdversarialAttacksDefenses2020} describe
different attacks and defenses for text, image and graph data in deep neural
networks. Defending against adversarial attacks often has negative impacts on
training time and accuracy \cite{tsiprasRobustnessMayBe2019}. Balancing these
trade-offs is therefore critical for real-world applications.

\subsection{Non-discrimination and Fairness}

Non-discrimination and fairness are two important properties of any artificial
intelligence system. If one or both of them are violated, trust in the system
erodes quickly. Often researchers only find out about a system's discriminatory
behavior when the system has been in place for a long time. In other
cases---such as with the chat bot Tay from Microsoft Research, for example---the
problems become immediately apparent once the algorithm is live. Countless other
models have been shown to be biased on multiple fronts: the US' recidivism
prediction software \textsc{COMPAS} is biased against black people
\cite{angwinMachineBias2016}, camera software for blink detection is biased
against Asian eyes \cite{roseFaceDetectionCamerasGlitches2010} and gender-based
discrimination in the placement of career advertisements
\cite{lambrechtAlgorithmicBiasEmpirical2019}. Some biases are already included
in the data from which an algorithm learns to differentiate between different
samples. Examples include \emph{measurement bias}, \emph{aggregation bias} and
\emph{representation bias} \cite{lambrechtAlgorithmicBiasEmpirical2019}. If
biases are present in systems that are already being used by people worldwide,
these systems can in turn influence users' behavior through \emph{algorithmic
bias}, \emph{popularity bias} and \emph{emergent bias}
\cite{friedmanBiasComputerSystems1996,lambrechtAlgorithmicBiasEmpirical2019}.

Not all biases are bad. In order for models to work properly, some form of bias
must be present in the data or there is no room for the model to generalize away
from individual samples to common properties. This is what is commonly referred
to as \emph{productive bias} \cite{liuTrustworthyAIComputational2021}. It is
often introduced by the assumptions engineers of machine learning algorithms
make about a specific problem. If the assumptions about the data are incorrectly
made by the model architects, productive bias quickly turns into \emph{erroneous
bias}. The last category of bias is \emph{discriminatory bias} and is of
particular relevance when designing artificial intelligence systems.

Fairness, on the other hand, is \enquote{the absence of any prejudice or
favoritism towards an individual or a group based on their inherent or acquired
characteristics} \cite[p.~2]{mehrabiSurveyBiasFairness2021}. Fairness in the
context of artificial intelligence thus means that the system treats groups or
individuals with similar traits similarly.

\subsubsection{Bias assessment tools} allow researchers to quantify the amount
of bias and fairness produced by a machine learning algorithm. One such
assessment tool is Aequitas \cite{saleiroAequitasBiasFairness2019}. Another tool
developed by IBM is called the AI Fairness 360 toolkit
\cite{bellamyAIFairness3602018}.

\subsubsection{Bias mitigation techniques} deal with unwanted bias in artificial
intelligence systems. Depending on the stage at which they are introduced, they
can be either applied during \emph{pre-processing}, \emph{in-processing} or
\emph{post-processing} \cite{liuTrustworthyAIComputational2021}. If it is
possible to access the training data beforehand, pre-processing methods are
particularly effective. Undersampled classes can be purposely weighted
differently than majority classes to achieve a better distribution over all
samples. Re-weighting can also be applied during training of the algorithm by
first training on the samples and then re-training on the weights of the first
training iteration. Post-processing methods include transforming the trained
model after the fact to account for potentially biased outputs. Balancing these
transformations can be a difficult endeavor because prediction accuracy can
suffer.

\subsection{Explainability}
\label{ssec:explainability}

Recent advances in artificial intelligence can mostly be attributed to an
ever-increasing model complexity, made possible by massive deep neural networks
(DNNs) and other similarly complex architectures. Due to their size models are
treated as black-boxes with no apparent way to know how a particular prediction
came to be. This lack of explainability disallows humans to trust artificial
intelligence systems especially in critical areas such as medicine. To combat
the development towards difficult to understand artificial intelligence systems,
a new research field called \emph{eXplainable Artificial Intelligence} (XAI) has
emerged.

Scholars distinguish between two similar but slightly different terms:
\emph{explainability} and \emph{interpretability}. Interpretable systems allow
humans to \emph{look inside} the model to determine which predictions it is
going to make. This is only possible if most or all parameters of the model are
visible to an observer and changes to those parameters result in predictable
changes in outputs. Explainability, on the other hand, applies to black-box
systems such as deep neural networks where the system explains its predictions
after the fact.

The definition of interpretability already provides one possibility for
explainable models. If the model is constructed in a way which makes the
parameters visible and a decision can be traced from a starting point to the
outcome, the model is inherently explainable. Examples are decision trees,
linear regression models, rule-based models and Bayesian networks. This approach
is not possible for neural networks and thus \emph{model-agnostic explanations}
have to be found. \textsc{LIME} \cite{ribeiroWhyShouldTrust2016} is a tool to
find such model-agnostic explanations. \textsc{LIME} works \enquote{…by learning
an interpretable model locally around the prediction}
\cite[p.~1]{ribeiroWhyShouldTrust2016}. An advantage of this approach is that
\textsc{LIME} is useful for any model, regardless of how it is constructed. Due
to the high amount of flexibility introduced by model\nobreakdash-agnostic
explanations, these can even be used for already interpretable models such as
random forest classifiers.

Deep neural networks can also be explained using either a \emph{gradient-based}
or \emph{perturbation-based} explanation algorithm. Gradient-based algorithms
attempt to evaluate how much outputs change if inputs are modified. If the
gradient for a set of inputs is large, those inputs have a large effect on
outputs. Similarly, a small gradient indicates that the change in inputs does
not affect the outputs to a large extent. Perturbation-based explanations work
by finding perturbations in the inputs that alter the model's predictions the
most. \textsc{LIME} is an example of a perturbation-based explanation algorithm.

\subsection{Privacy}

In the age of information privacy has become an important cornerstone of our
societies. Recent legislative efforts such as the EU's General Data Protection
Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the US
confirm the need to preserve the privacy of individuals. If people are made
aware of the fact that artificial intelligence systems can potentially leak
sensitive information, it will have negative effects on the trustworthiness of
those systems. Incorporating privacy preserving techniques into existing machine
learning algorithms is therefore crucial for trustworthy AI. In the area of
artificial intelligence research, privacy has historically not been one of the
top priorities, but the field of \emph{privacy-preserving machine learning}
(PPML) aims to change that.

Different methods to attack machine learning models and to subsequently extract
personally identifying information (PII) exist. One such method is the
\emph{membership inference attack} (MIA) where an adversary tries to infer
whether a data point was used during the training phase of the model or not
\cite{shokriMembershipInferenceAttacks2017}. Another attack is the \emph{model
inversion attack} where an attacker tries to infer sensitive information in the
inputs of a model from its outputs. It has been shown, for example, that facial
recognition models can be used to recover images of people's faces using only
their names \cite{fredriksonModelInversionAttacks2015}. These attacks highlight
the need for research into privacy preserving artificial intelligence.

\subsubsection{Confidential computing} describes a set of methods in the realm
of computing which allow secure data to be accessed and modified only through
secure means. \emph{Trusted Execution Environments} (TEEs) store encrypted data
securely and facilitate secure interactions with the data. Only authorized
operations are allowed to be carried out and only authorized actors (e.g.
permissioned cryptographic keys) can do so.

\emph{Homomorphic encryption schemes} make it possible to perform operations on
encrypted data without a decryption step. The result of a homomorphic operation
is again encrypted data and exactly the same as if the data had been decrypted
beforehand to allow the data to be used in an operation and then encrypted
again. So far only partially homomorphic encryption is usable for applications
because only a subset of all possible functions is supported. Fully homomorphic
encryption is very hard to implement in scalable systems.

\subsubsection{Federated learning} tries to limit the amount of potentially
sensitive information in transit. Instead of moving data from edge nodes in a
distributed system to a central server which then computes the machine learning
model, edge nodes themselves train individual models on the data they have
collected. The models are then sent to a central server for further processing.
Federated learning is a decentralized approach to learning machine learning
models and in stark contrast to centralized structures. Edge nodes need to have
sufficient computing power to train their models efficiently and the environment
they are in must allow for continuous data transfers between the outer nodes and
a central server.

\subsubsection{Differential privacy} is another privacy preserving technique
intended to protect user's information without (significantly) compromising a
model's prediction accuracy. By introducing noise into the dataset, differential
privacy aims to make it impossible to infer information about individual data
points while still providing the statistical properties of the learned
distribution. Deleting or modifying a single data point should not have a
noticeable impact on the information contained in the dataset.

\subsection{Accountability and Auditability}

Accountability of artificial intelligence systems refers to how much the system
can be trusted and who should be held accountable in case of errors. Due to the
black-box nature of some machine learning algorithms, accountability is
difficult to establish. With a lack of explainability knowing which part of the
system is responsible for which output is an impossible task. Auditability
partially relies on accountability to function properly. Without accountability
auditing an artificial intelligence system does not offer much insight as the
question of responsibility is not answered. Especially with regards to
widespread adoption of AI and the necessity for regulation of such systems,
auditability provides a basis from which decisions pertaining the use of AI are
made possible. If AI leaves an \emph{audit trail} behind every time it makes a
prediction, trust in the system is easier to establish since actions can be
traced and uncertainties in case the system does not behave as expected are
removed by proper regulations.

\subsection{Environmental Well-Being}

Artificial intelligence systems should be as energy efficient as possible to
minimize their impact on the environment. Environmental well-being of machine
learning algorithms is needed to be ethically viable solutions for problems and
systems which are more ethical are more trustworthy. Especially with new
regulations and continuously active public debate environmental concerns should
take center stage during the development of AI. The increasing complexity of
deep neural networks often results in even higher energy usage during training
and technical means to deal with that trend have to be developed.

Besides improving general data center efficiency through sophisticated cooling
methods and heat waste usage, there are software-level approaches to making
artificial intelligence systems energy conserving. One such method is
\emph{model compression} where the goal is to decrease the space and energy
requirements of models while simultaneously retaining performance. An
application of this method is \emph{pruning} of neural networks by removing
redundant neurons. \emph{Quantization} takes a different approach by instead
decreasing the size of the weights. \emph{Knowledge distillation} takes
advantage of the fact that learned models are usually over-parameterized and can
thus be \emph{distilled} into a smaller model which mimics the larger model's
output \cite{hintonDistillingKnowledgeNeural2015}.

\section{Social Computing}
\label{sec:social-computing}

So far, trustworthy AI has been defined by exploring how trust between humans
and other humans or AI is formed. From a computational perspective,
chapter~\ref{sec:taxonomy} provides various insights into how artificial
intelligence can be made more trustworthy. Since implementing these
recommendations for improved designs of artificial intelligence systems require
a thorough understanding of technical matters, some systems will not be
sufficiently equipped for an environment in which trustworthiness is a
requirement. Furthermore, a system---regardless of whether it falls into the AI
category, or not---is almost always embedded in a context which includes many
other agents as well. Other agents do not only constitute technical machinery
but also humans which are part of the larger system. Humans interact with these
systems through interfaces which are specifically designed for this purpose. It
is therefore reasonable to assume that the \emph{social context} in which a
system operates plays an important part in its trustworthiness. Especially with
regards to a business environment, models which integrate both aspects well
stand to gain a lot. This relationship---between an AI system and the human
context in which it is situated---is the topic of this chapter. 

\subsection{Example Scenario}
\label{sec:example-scenario}

A common scenario in a monitoring environment is the following. A business has
multiple services in operation which facilitate interactions with their
customers. All of these services produce log messages which contain information
about the service's current status, how many customers are currently being
served and potential errors the system is encountering. With a high number of
parallel running services, an increasing amount of log messages is produced.
These log messages have to be looked at by either another system or a unit of
humans so that only the most relevant messages are passed to the next stage. The
next stage might be a manager or similar entity responsible for decisions
concerning the on-going operation of the services.

There are multiple dimensions to this scenario which require different
approaches to the organization of the
workflow~\cite{dustdarSocialComputeUnit2011}. The first dimension is the
\emph{number of events}. A system which produces a relatively low number of
events due to having a low number of services, is most likely appropriately
managed by a handful of humans. If the number of events is high and/or crosses a
certain threshold, the sheer amount of information arriving at the processors
(in this case humans) is overwhelming.

The second dimension is a product of the heterogeneous environment of an IT
service provider. Since multiple services are in operation which likely do not
follow the same standards for how log messages or events look like, when they
are produced and how they are reported, processors are faced with a high
\emph{event variability}~\cite{dustdarSocialComputeUnit2011}. A high event
variability places a high cognitive load on any human responsible for processing
the incoming events. Event variability and cognitive load are proportional to
each other in that an increasing variability results in an increasing cognitive
load.

The third dimension concerns the likely necessity to \emph{upgrade} the systems
once \emph{growth} happens~\cite{dustdarSocialComputeUnit2011}. A change in the
underlying systems often requires the processors of the events to adapt to the
changing environment as well. They have to know in which way the systems have
changed and what kind of different events they produce so that the agents can
continue their critical function. A failure to adapt downstream structures to
the changing systems can stunt the business' growth and its ability to compete.

To deal with the complexity of these three dimensions, a common solution is to
have a system (often rule-based) which extracts relevant information from all
events and forwards a processed version to human agents for further inspection
and resolving. Additionally, a second group of human agents is necessary to
change the rules of the system so that it can keep up with changes in its
environment. \textcite{dustdarSocialComputeUnit2011} propose such a group and
term it the \emph{Social Compute Unit}.

\subsection{Social Compute Unit}
\label{sec:social-compute-unit}

The social compute unit is composed of a team of resources possessing either
\enquote{skills in the problem domain (event analysis) or the system domain
(configuring the filtering
software)}~\cite[p.~66]{dustdarSocialComputeUnit2011}.
Figure~\ref{fig:social-compute-unit} shows the environment the social compute
unit is embedded in and the interactions between the parties in the
organizational unit. An important property of the social compute unit is that
it's members are not dedicated resources but rather act when the requirement to
do so comes up. For example, if a customer-facing service has an update which
introduces breaking changes, a knowledgeable member of the monitoring agents
steps in to update the affected rules. Another reason for resources expending
time to work on the rule-based software is to improve processes within the
structure so that certain tasks are accomplished in a more efficient manner.
Members of the social compute unit are rewarded based on metrics such as the
number of rules configured, time spent in hours or hours saved by the
introduction of new rules.

\begin{figure}
    \centering
    \includegraphics[width=.7\textwidth]{figures/social-compute-unit.png}
    \caption{Social Compute Unit (SCU). An IT service provider needs to monitor
        the operations of multiple services/servers. Monitoring agents act to
        resolve issues a the software deems important. The social compute unit
        updates, adds or deletes rules. Image
        credit~\cite{dustdarSocialComputeUnit2011}.}
    \label{fig:social-compute-unit}
\end{figure}

Since the social compute unit is not composed of dedicated resources, it comes
only into effect when a specific problem has to be solved. It is therefore
requested by someone to get the right team for the right job. The team is then
assembled \emph{on demand} by a person with sufficient expertise in the problem
domain such that the unit is constructed while taking the member's skills and
ability to work together into account. Alternatively, the task of assembling the
team does not have to be carried out by a human but can also be carried out by
specialized (matching) software.

\textcite{dustdarSocialComputeUnit2011} define a social compute unit's life
cycle as consisting of six stages. In the first stage, a unit comes into effect
once a \emph{request} has been issued. In the \emph{create} stage, the team is
compiled. After that it goes through an \emph{assimilation} phase wherein it
becomes acquainted with the task at hand. The \emph{virtualization} stage
follows where it is ensured that the unit can communicate effectively and has
the necessary resources, such as a test environment. In the \emph{deployment}
phase, the unit produces results and implements them in the production
environment. After completion of the objective the team is \emph{dissolved}.

Due to the close integration of monitoring agents, the social compute unit and
the software which initially processes the events generated by the services, a
high degree of trust is required. Since the software is architected as a
rule\nobreakdash-based system, it has the properties necessary for achieving
explainability of its actions (see section~\ref{ssec:explainability}).
Monitoring agents have the opportunity to become (temporarily) part of the
social compute unit which allows them to configure the rules of the software
themselves. Working with the software and contributing a vital part to a
software's function has the potential effect of increasing the software's
trustworthiness. Additionally, stakeholders outside of the system can be
confident that the degree to which humans are involved is high, which arguably
also increases the system's trustworthiness. The architecture proposed
by~\textcite{dustdarSocialComputeUnit2011} is therefore a good model to build
trust in the system's inner workings and results.

\section{Conclusion}
\label{sec:conclusion}

Trustworthy AI is becoming an increasingly researched field which has important
implications for the future development of artificial intelligence systems and
their function within our societies. The various technical methods for
increasing an AI system's trustworthiness are still actively researched and have
not yet proven themselves in large production contexts. Besides implementing
technical methods, AI trustworthiness can also be approached from an
organizational perspective. One model for achieving greater trust is through
introducing social compute units into business workflows. A combination of both
approaches might yield an even higher return on investment in the future.
Additional challenges are posed by the shift of AI systems away from the
\enquote{center of the cloud} to its edges. With AI's increasing capabilities it
is also likely that we will have to adapt current methods to achieve better
trust in tandem with their evolution.

\printbibliography

\end{document}