Abstract
Context & Motivation: The development of software that learns has revolutionized how many systems perform. For the most part, these systems are neither safety- nor mission-critical. However, as technology and aspirations advance, there is an increased desire and need for Machine Learning (ML) software in safety- and mission-critical systems, e.g., driverless cars or autonomous space robotics. Problem: In these domains, reliability is crucial and systems have to undergo much scrutiny in terms of both the developed artefacts and the adopted development process. Central to the development of such systems is the elicitation and definition of software requirements that are used to guide the design and verification process. The addition of software components that learn, and the associated capability for unforeseen behavior, makes defining detailed software requirements especially difficult. Principal ideas/results: In this paper, we identify unique characteristics of software requirements that are specific to ML components. To this end, we collect and examine requirements from both academic and industrial sources. Contribution: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that presents real-life, industrial patterns of requirements for ML components. Furthermore, this paper identifies key characteristics and provides a foundation for developing a taxonomy of requirements for software that learns.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Thomas Pressburger and Irfan Sljivo for requirement examples, insightful feedback and discussions. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewers who provided detailed improvement suggestions. Marie Farrell was supported by a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship. Anastasia Mavridou and Johann Schumann were supported by NASA contract 80ARC020D0010.
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Farrell, M., Mavridou, A., Schumann, J. (2023). Exploring Requirements for Software that Learns: A Research Preview. In: Ferrari, A., Penzenstadler, B. (eds) Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality. REFSQ 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13975. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29786-1_12
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