Engineering Digital Systems for Humanity: a Research Roadmap

2024-12-27

AI Summary

This study addresses the absence of humanistic values in digital systems engineering by proposing a novel paradigm driven by human, societal, and environmental values. Methodologically, it pioneers the integration of the tripartite roles of human agency—proactive, reactive, and passive—with the dialectic relationship between trust and trustworthiness at the core of systems engineering, synergizing Value Sensitive Design, human-centered AI governance, sustainable software engineering, and trustworthy modeling and verification techniques. Its contributions include: (1) a research roadmap comprising four thematic directions—requirements engineering, architectural design, development processes, and verification & validation—encompassing 12 key technologies; (2) a theoretically grounded, human-centered framework for sustainable digital systems engineering; and (3) actionable engineering foundations for regulatory implementations such as the EU AI Act, thereby advancing the software quality paradigm from functional correctness toward humanistic responsibility.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Learning Human Values and Preferences
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Safety, Robustness & Trustworthiness
• Application Domains: Software Engineering

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactions
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web applications in cross-disciplinary domains and verticals such as mixed reality, smart cities, and digital health

Abstract

As testified by new regulations like the European AI Act, worries about the human and societal impact of (autonomous) software technologies are becoming of public concern. Human, societal, and environmental values, alongside traditional software quality, are increasingly recognized as essential for sustainability and long-term well-being. Traditionally, systems are engineered taking into account business goals and technology drivers. Considering the growing awareness in the community, in this paper, we argue that engineering of systems should also consider human, societal, and environmental drivers. Then, we identify the macro and technological challenges by focusing on humans and their role while co-existing with digital systems. The first challenge considers humans in a proactive role when interacting with digital systems, i.e., taking initiative in making things happen instead of reacting to events. The second concerns humans having a reactive role in interacting with digital systems, i.e., humans interacting with digital systems as a reaction to events. The third challenge focuses on humans with a passive role, i.e., they experience, enjoy or even suffer the decisions and/or actions of digital systems. The fourth challenge concerns the duality of trust and trustworthiness, with humans playing any role. Building on the new human, societal, and environmental drivers and the macro and technological challenges, we identify a research roadmap of digital systems for humanity. The research roadmap is concretized in a number of research directions organized into four groups: development process, requirements engineering, software architecture and design, and verification and validation.

Problem

• Human-Centered Design
• Sustainability
• Ethical Engineering

Innovation

• Sustainable Digital Engineering
• Human-Centric Design
• Regulatory Compliance