Towards Responsible AI - Competencies for Engineers: An Explorative Literature Review On Existing Frameworks

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) underscores the critical necessity for engineers to comprehend their responsibilities in AI use and development. This imperative requires equipping engineers with the requisite skills and knowledge to address societal challenges while ensuring that AI technologies are harnessed for societal benefit and mitigating potential risks. To support educators and course developers in identifying relevant competencies, the Responsible AI Competencies for Engineers (RAICE) framework is currently being developed collaboratively among educators, engineers, mathematicians, sociologists, and ethicists. This practice paper reports a work-in-progress based on our first explorations. In particular, we focus on Responsible AI (RAI), connected competencies, and their importance within the engineering domain. This paper answers how competencies of RAI are addressed in current frameworks for AI and ethics in general and for engineers. We report preliminary results from existing Responsible AI and engineering ethics frameworks and outline our research approach toward defining a competence framework that can guide engineering educators in developing novel learning experiences on Responsible AI and integrate these into their programs and courses.