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Value-based engineering

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Not to be confused with Value engineering or Value-driven design.

Value-based engineering (VBE) is a system development and innovation approach that is based on the IEEE Standard "7000-2021 - IEEE Standard Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns during System Design" (IEEE 7000).[1] IEEE 7000 was first released in 2021[2] and it was adopted by the International Organization for Standardization as ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-7000:2022 (ISO 24748-7000) in November 2022.[3]

In July 2024, Austrian Standards launched the personell certification "Value-based Engineering Ambassador for Ethical" allowing for individuals to demonstrate competence against the standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-7000 in connection with elements of the management standard ISO/IEC 42001 for AI.[4] The City of Vienna announced in October 2024 to use Value-based Engineering within the city government for the improvement of the web portal mein.wien, including the goal of at least one certification against the underlying standard IEEE 7000.[5]

Standard Development and the relationship to Value-based Engineering

The underlying standard IEEE 7000 was developed over a five-year period starting in 2016[1] and is based on the initial work published in "Ethical IT innovation: A value-based system design approach" in 2015.[6] Published in 2021, the standard's goal is to "enable organizations to design systems with explicit consideration of individual and societal ethical values".[2] It is the first engineering standard designed to integrate ethical considerations into system design by providing a structured methodology for identifying stakeholder values, assessing ethical risks, and embedding them into technical requirements. It thereby serves as a bridge between ethics and engineering.[7]

VBE is a practical implementation of IEEE 7000, condensing and structuring its methodology into actionable steps.[1]

Engineering process

In VBE, ethical system design is achieved through four processes aligned with ISO/IEC 15288.

  1. Concept of operation and context exploration process: This process aims to gain an initial understanding of the context, relevant stakeholders, legal, social, environmental, and ethical feasibility, and control over the intended external partners of a proposed system, and to develop a tangible concept of operations.[8]
  2. Ethical values elicitation and prioritization process: The impact of a proposed system on values and virtues is investigated using a utilitarian, virtue ethics, duty ethics, and culture-specific perspectives. While the utilitarian perspective identifies harms and benefits to the direct and indirect stakeholders, the virtue ethics perspective identifies potentially harmful virtue effects, and the duty ethics perspective considers the impact of the system on duty-ethical principles.[8]
  3. Ethically aligned design process: During this process core values and their value qualities are translated into EVRs[clarify], which are then specified into system requirements.[8] Unique to VBE is that either a threat analysis (low risk) or an impact assessment (high risk) is used for specifying system requirements, depending on the damage potential and probability of occurrence.[8]
  4. Transparency and information management process: This process accompanies the entire development lifecycle and focuses on creating transparency about the prioritized core values and their logical chain to the system requirements.[2]

The ten principles

VBE complements IEEE St. 7000 by introducing ten principles essential for addressing ethical concerns during system design.[8]

  1. Organizations take responsibility for their ecosystem and forgo services over which they have no control.
  2. Organizations actively consider not investing in a system if there are ethical reasons for not doing so.
  3. Systems are developed in open collaboration with stakeholders or their representatives.
  4. Ethical investigations are used to elicit values.
  5. The context of a system's implementation is to be understood and its potential impact anticipated.
  6. Organizations are recommended to respect the ethical principles of the laws and signed agreements in its target market region.
  7. Organization management makes a public and personal commitment to the chosen core values.
  8. Organizations provide transparency on prioritized core values and their linkage to system requirements.
  9. Core values are understood in depth through conceptualization and their associated value qualities.
  10. EVRs[clarify] are specified into system requirements through either a threat analysis (low risk) or an impact assessment (high risk).

Criticism

There are only a limited number of case studies that show that VBE is effective in facilitating the development of innovative or even ethical systems.[9]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Spiekermann, Sarah (20 March 2023). Value-Based Engineering: A Guide to Building Ethical Technology for Humanity. De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110793383. ISBN 978-3-11-079338-3.
  2. ^ a b c "IEEE Standard Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns during System Design". IEEE Std 7000-2021: 1–82. 15 September 2021. doi:10.1109/IEEESTD.2021.9536679.
  3. ^ "ISO/IEC/IEEE 24748-7000". ISO. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  4. ^ "Austrian Standards setzt mit Zertifizierungsprogramm und Lehrgang rund um KI und Ethik neue Standards". Austrian Standards. Retrieved 12 March 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  5. ^ "Das haben wir vor - Klare Regeln für die Digitalisierung in Wien: souverän und sozial - Digitale Agenda der Stadt Wien 2030". Digitale Agenda der Stadt Wien 2030. Retrieved 12 March 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ Spiekermann, Sarah (2016). Ethical IT innovation : a value-based system design approach. Boca Raton, FL. ISBN 978-1-4822-2636-2. OCLC 945217422.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. ^ Spiekermann, S. (2021). "What to Expect From IEEE 7000: The First Standard for Building Ethical Systems". IEEE Technology and Society Magazine. 40 (3): 99–100. doi:10.1109/MTS.2021.3104386. ISSN 0278-0097. S2CID 237458247.
  8. ^ a b c d e Spiekermann, Sarah (2023). Value-Based Engineering: A Guide to Building Ethical Technology for Humanity. De Gruyter. p. 39. ISBN 9783110793369.
  9. ^ Bednar, Kathrin; Spiekermann, Sarah (2022). "Eliciting Values for Technology Design with Moral Philosophy: An Empirical Exploration of Effects and Shortcomings". Science, Technology, & Human Values. 49 (3): 611–645. doi:10.1177/01622439221122595. S2CID 252402614.
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