# Towards Achieving Trust Through Transparency and Ethics (Pre-Print)

**Authors:** David Kwan, Luiz Marcio Cysneiros, Julio Cesar Sampaio do Prado Leite  
**arXiv:** [2107.02959](https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.02959)  
**Date:** 2021-07-07  
**Summary page:** https://www.summarizepaper.com/en/arxiv-id/2107.02959v1/

## Key points

- Software and AI are ubiquitous in the products we use today
- There is an increasing need for consumer trust in these products
- Lack of transparency and ethics often cause consumers to lose faith in them
- This lack of trust propagates to the companies behind these products, which is concerning in mission-critical systems like autonomous vehicles and clinical support systems
- A recent pre-print paper titled "Towards Achieving Trust Through Transparency and Ethics" follows grounded theory principles to elicit knowledge related to Trust, Ethics, and Transparency
- The authors approach these qualities as Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs) with the aim of building catalogs that can help construct Socially Responsible Software
- The corpus used for this study was built on a selected collection of literature on Corporate Social Responsibility with an emphasis on Business Ethics
- Results are presented by a catalogue of Trust as a Non-Functional Requirement represented as a Softgoal Interdependency Graph (SIG)
- This SIG language helps software engineers understand alternatives they have to improve Trust in software products
- Overall, this paper provides valuable insights into how organizations can achieve trustworthiness through transparency and ethics by approaching these qualities as NFRs and building catalogs for socially responsible software construction.

## Summary

In today's world, software and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are ubiquitous in the products we use. As a result, there is an increasing need for consumer trust in these products. However, consumers often lose faith in them due to various factors such as lack of transparency and ethics. This lack of trust propagates to the companies behind these products, which is especially concerning in mission-critical systems like autonomous vehicles and clinical support systems. To address this issue, a recent pre-print paper titled "Towards Achieving Trust Through Transparency and Ethics" follows grounded theory principles to elicit knowledge related to Trust, Ethics, and Transparency. The authors approach these qualities as Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs) with the aim of building catalogs that can help construct Socially Responsible Software. The corpus used for this study was built on a selected collection of literature on Corporate Social Responsibility with an emphasis on Business Ethics. The challenge was how to encode social perspective knowledge mainly through the view of Corporate Social Responsibility on how organizations or institutions achieve trustworthiness. Since the ground perspective is that of NFRs, results are presented by a catalogue of Trust as a Non-Functional Requirement represented as a Softgoal Interdependency Graph (SIG). This SIG language helps software engineers understand alternatives they have to improve Trust in software products. Overall, this paper provides valuable insights into how organizations can achieve trustworthiness through transparency and ethics by approaching these qualities as NFRs and building catalogs for socially responsible software construction. By doing so, companies can regain consumer trust in their products while also contributing positively towards society's well-being.