Collaborative Research: DASS: Accountable Software Systems for Safety-Critical Applications

安全关键型软件系统正在大量进入市场，预计将改变许多行业，包括医疗保健、交通运输、制造业和其他行业。为了应对日益增长的社会影响和软件系统的复杂性，立法者和监管当局正在实施新的法律、法规和指导方针，以追究软件对其有害影响的责任。这些法律方法在不同的司法管辖区和不同的应用程序领域是不同的，随着立法者和监管机构继续研究和解决新兴的软件功能，它们将随着时间的推移而发展。尽管监管压力越来越大，但最先进的软件设计方法在提供安全关键系统所需的责任方面存在缺陷。该项目的新颖性有两个：(1)开发有原则的方法和工具，以确保和展示安全关键软件系统相对于随时间演变的法律和法规的责任，以及(2)推进一个法律框架，以协调对跨不同安全关键领域的软件系统的监管。该项目的影响是促进根据各种法规负责的安全关键软件系统的设计，并提供关于如何扩展或修改现有监管方法以加强软件问责的法律见解。此外，调查人员将组织一系列跨学科讲习班和专题讨论会，将软件设计和法律方面的专家聚集在一起，讨论公开的研究问题和软件问责的可能解决办法。调查人员还计划开发新的计算机科学和法律课程材料，以整合拟议的研究成果，并积极招募代表性不足的学生担任拟议项目的职位。该项目包括三个研究推动力，寻求对软件设计和法律做出基础性贡献。第一个推力创建了新的方法和工具，用于在整个软件开发生命周期中开发组合动态保证用例，以确保并证明责任。第二个重点是开发新的形式验证技术，以生成可证明和可证明的法规遵从性保证，这些保证可用作担保案件中的证据。第三个重点是发展关于立法者和监管机构应该如何扩展或修改当前的监管方法以纳入软件责任方法的进步的法律洞察力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Safety-critical software systems are entering the market in large numbers and are expected to transform many industries including healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, and others. In response to the rising societal impact and complexity of software systems, lawmakers and regulatory authorities are implementing new laws, regulations, and guidelines to hold software accountable for its harmful effects. These legal approaches differ across jurisdictions and across application domains, and they will evolve over time as lawmakers and regulators continue to study and address emerging software capabilities. Despite this mounting regulatory pressure, state-of-the-art software-design methodologies are deficient at providing the desired accountability in safety-critical systems. The project’s novelties are twofold: (1) developing principled approaches and tools for assuring and demonstrating accountability of safety-critical software systems with respect to laws and regulations that evolve over time, and (2) advancing a legal framework that harmonizes regulatory oversight of software systems across heterogeneous safety-critical domains. The project’s impacts are facilitating the design of safety-critical software systems that are accountable with respect to various regulations, and providing legal insight on how to extend or amend current regulatory approaches to enhance software accountability. In addition, the investigators will organize a series of interdisciplinary workshops and symposiums to bring together experts in software design and law to discuss open research questions and potential solutions to software accountability. The investigators also plan to develop new course materials in computer science and law to integrate the proposed research outcomes, and actively recruit underrepresented students for positions in the proposed project.The project includes three research thrusts that seek to make fundamental contributions to both software design and law. The first thrust creates novel approaches and tools for developing compositional dynamic assurance cases throughout the software development lifecycle to assure and demonstrate accountability. The second thrust develops novel formal-verification techniques for generating provable and certifiable regulation compliance guarantees, which can be used as evidence in assurance cases. The third thrust develops legal insight on how lawmakers and regulators should extend or amend current regulatory approaches to incorporate advances in software accountability methods.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.