A Process to Enforce Ethical Requirements of Autonomous Systems

Abstract

This paper addresses the challenge of enforcing ethical behaviors at runtime in autonomous systems through a structured ethics assurance process. At the core of this process is a subsystem that rigorously operationalizes ethical rules, specifically social, legal, ethical, empathetic, and cultural (SLEEC) requirements. This subsystem enables the dynamic evaluation, adaptation, and enforcement of ethically compliant behavior within a formally defined runtime model. The proposed approach, named SLEEC@run.time, is demonstrated through a running example involving firefighter-uncrewed aerial vehicles. In addition, by leveraging its flexible runtime model, SLEEC@run.time accommodates changes such as the addition or removal of SLEEC rules, ensuring a robust and evolvable approach to ethical assurance in autonomous systems.

Cite as:

@inproceedings{DeSanctisFIMPS26,
author = {De Sanctis, Martina and Filippone, Gianluca and Inverardi, Paola and Mirandola, Raffaela and Pettinari, Sara and Scandurra, Patrizia},
title = {A Process to Enforce Ethical Requirements of Autonomous Systems at Runtime},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
doi = {10.1145/3788550.3794876},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-Managing Systems},
pages = {136–141},
numpages = {6},
keywords = {SLEEC rules, Ethics Enforcement, Models@run.time, Autonomous Systems},
series = {SEAMS '26}
}