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Trustworthy AI Services in the Public Sector: What Are Citizens Saying About It?

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Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 12685))

Abstract

[Motivation] Artificial intelligence (AI) creates many opportunities for public institutions, but the unethical use of AI in public services can reduce citizens’ trust. [Question] The aim of this study was to identify what kind of requirements citizens have for trustworthy AI services in the public sector. The study included 21 interviews and a design workshop of four public AI services. [Results] The main finding was that all the participants wanted public AI services to be transparent. This transparency requirement covers a number of questions that trustworthy AI services must answer, such as about their purposes. The participants also asked about the data used in AI services and from what sources the data were collected. They pointed out that AI must provide easy-to-understand explanations. We also distinguished two other important requirements: controlling personal data usage and involving humans in AI services. [Contribution] For practitioners, the paper provides a list of questions that trustworthy public AI services should answer. For the research community, it illuminates the transparency requirement of AI systems from the perspective of citizens.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Saidot team from spring 2019 for starting the project and assisting in the data collection of this study, J. Mattila for co-organizing and conducting parts of the interviews, and our participants for sharing their experiences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

    Karolina Drobotowicz, Marjo Kauppinen & Sari Kujala

Authors
  1. Karolina Drobotowicz
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  2. Marjo Kauppinen
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  3. Sari Kujala
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karolina Drobotowicz .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Fabiano Dalpiaz

  2. Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA, USA

    Paola Spoletini

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Drobotowicz, K., Kauppinen, M., Kujala, S. (2021). Trustworthy AI Services in the Public Sector: What Are Citizens Saying About It?. In: Dalpiaz, F., Spoletini, P. (eds) Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality. REFSQ 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12685. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73128-1_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73128-1_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-73127-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-73128-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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