Regulation of Trustworthy Autonomous Systems: exploring perspectives on trustworthiness and answerability

Empirical Legal Research Network work-in-progress seminars

Dr Louise Hatherall, Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh

Regulation of Trustworthy Autonomous Systems: exploring perspectives on trustworthiness and answerability 

Computing systems are becoming increasingly autonomous: from self-driving cars, to reading and diagnosing medical imaging scans. Nascent regulation in the UK and EU is underpinned by a recognition that such systems be trustworthy. This means demonstrating that autonomous systems (AS) – as assemblages of humans, software, and hardware – are deserving of trust. Despite this recognition, there is uncertainty about how best to facilitate system trustworthiness, and what different groups of people need to find such systems trustworthy. Empirical studies on trust to-date tend to explore related concepts (such as reliance), and propose technical solutions, often to the exclusion of alternative socio-technical proposals which may facilitate trustworthiness. This focus tends to result in treating trust as something malleable in response to technical changes: e.g. if the transparency of a system is improved, trust will inevitably increase. Empirical work is urgently needed to address these gaps to ensure the empirically grounded development of regulatory approaches, informed by diverse stakeholder perspectives. This work is particularly timely given the current dynamic regulatory space. 

This paper presents findings from empirical work, undertaken as part of the UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems project. It explores a framework of answerability – that is, providing the person impacted by AS with the answers they might want or need - as a way to facilitate the trustworthiness of AS. This framework is informed by a series of scoping conversations, interviews, and focus groups with clinicians, developers, regulators, policy experts, data scientists, and members of the public to understand what answers different people want and need from AS to find them trustworthy. It further maps these findings onto the emerging regulatory frameworks of the UK and EU, to understand how the framework might be operationalised in practice.  

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