Responsible AI System Development in Automotive Applications: A Framework

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">With the surge in adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in automotive systems, especially Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles (AV), comes an increase of AI-related incidents–several of which have ended in injuries and fatalities. These incidents all share a common deficiency: insufficient coverage towards safety, ethical, and/or legal requirements. Responsible AI (RAI) is an approach to developing AI-enabled systems that systematically take such requirements into account. Existing published international standards like ISO 21448:2022 (Safety of the Intended Functionality) and ISO 26262:2018 (Road Vehicles – Functional Safety) do offer some guidance in this regard but are far from being sufficient. Therefore, several technical standards are emerging concurrently to address various RAI-related challenges, including but not limited to ISO 8800 for the integration of AI in automotive systems, ISO/IEC TR 5469:2024 for the integration of AI in functional safety, ISO 5083 for the design, verification and validation of automated driving systems and ISO/IEC 42001:2023 for implementation of an AI management system. This poses a significant risk of overwhelming organizations with limited resources by forcing them to parse through overlaps and conflicts across these standards. In this paper, we explore a straightforward, concise, and high-level framework to harmonize guidance provided by existing AI standards with a focus on automotive applications. We show how this can streamline and standardize the integration of RAI systems within the automotive industry and allow for the proactive development of safe, responsible, and ethical AI-enabled systems using a unified responsibility-centered framework.</div></div>