Replacing human decision making with machine decision making results in challenges associated with stakeholders’ trust in autonomous systems. To develop verifiably safe and trustworthy human- AI as autonomous systems, it is key to understand how different stakeholders perceive an autonomous system as trusted and trustworthy, and how the context of application affects their perceptions.

 

Interdisciplinary (socio-technical) approaches, grounded in social science (trust) and computer science (safety), are often under-used in AI systems investigations and the VESTAS project aims to provide a contextual (different domains of application) and inclusive (different categories of stakeholders) view to develop this interdisciplinary research agenda.

Business people and AI robots working together: business applications for artificial intelligence

VESTAS initially focuses on identifying and engaging with different categories of stakeholders as well as safety-trust challenges. Secondly, the awareness levels of potential solutions, in different categories of stakeholders are analysed; and thirdly discursive techniques are identified to develop and improve the general awareness of potential solution concepts.

Based on the output of the above phases, VESTAS intends to provide a roadmap on challenges and technical requirements to be addressed for the design and development of verifiably safe and trusted autonomous human-AI systems. This roadmap includes guidelines that different stakeholders can utilise.

Project Team

Meet Our Project Team

Dr Asieh Salehi Fathabadi

Dr Asieh Salehi Fathabadi

Senior Research Fellow of Computer Science, University of Southampton

Lead Contact
Professor Pauline Leonard

Pauline Leonard

Professor of Sociology, Executive Director Web Science Institute, University of Southampton

Co-Investigator
Dr Vahid Yazdanpanah

Dr Vahid Yazdanpanah

Assistant Professor (Lecturer) of Computer Science, University of Southampton

Co-Investigator
Dr Victoria Young

Dr Victoria Young

Research Associate, King’s College London

TAS Research Co-Investigator
Dr Michael Akintunde

Dr Michael Akintunde

Post-doctoral Researcher, King’s College London

TAS Research Co-Investigator
Professor Rosalind Edwards

Rosalind Edwards

Professor of Sociology, Fellow of the National Centre for Research Methods, University of Southampton

Academic Partner
Professor Luc Moreau

Luc Moreau

Professor of Computer Science, Head of Department of Informatics, King’s College London

Academic Partner
Professor Michael Butler

Michael Butler

Professor of Computer Science, Dean Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Southampton

TAS Liaison