Wednesday, December 7, 2022

SCSC Talk: Bootstrapping Safety Assurance

Bootstrapping Safety Assurance

Abstract:
The expense and general impracticability of doing enough real-world testing to demonstrate safety for autonomous systems motivates finding some sort of shortcut. A bootstrapped testing approach is often proposed, using evidence from initial mishap-free testing to argue that continued testing is safe enough. In this talk I'll explain why pure bootstrapping based on testing exposure as well as arguments involving "probably perfect" bootstrapping expose public road users to undue risk. Moreover, phased deployments often used to argue safe update release have the same problem. An approach that bootstraps on the safety case rather than on vehicle testing is proposed as a potentially better alternative. While the examples given involve autonomous ground vehicles, the principles involved apply to any argument that safety will be demonstrated via a bootstrap testing process.

This talk was recorded as part of the SCSC Future of Testing for Safety-Critical Systems seminar on Dec. 1, 2022.
Talks and videos are available here (access with paid annual club membership):  https://scsc.uk/e966prog

Free public-access copy of slides here: 




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