Normative Requirements Operationalization with Large Language Models

Nick Feng*, Lina Marsso*, Sinem Getir Yaman*, Isobel Standen, Yesugen Baatartogtokh*, Reem Ayad*, Victoria Oldemburgo De Mello*, Beverley Townsend, Hanne Bartels*, Ana Cavalcanti, Radu Calinescu, Marsha Chechik*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Normative non-functional requirements specify con-straints that a system must observe in order to avoid violations of social, legal, ethical, empathetic, and cultural norms. As these requirements are typically defined by non-technical system stakeholders with different expertise and priorities (ethicists, lawyers, social scientists, etc.), ensuring their well-formedness and consistency is very challenging. Recent research has tackled this challenge using a domain-specific language to specify normative requirements as rules whose consistency can then be analysed with formal methods. In this paper, we propose a complemen-tary approach that uses Large Language Models to extract semantic relationships between abstract representations of system capabilities. These relations, which are often assumed implicitly by non-technical stakeholders (e.g., based on common sense or domain knowledge), are then used to enrich the automated reasoning techniques for eliciting and analyzing the consistency of normative requirements. We show the effectiveness of our approach to normative requirements elicitation and operational-ization through a range of real-world case studies. An extended version of this paper, which includes appendices is available at https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.12335

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 32nd IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, RE 2024
EditorsGrischa Liebel, Irit Hadar, Paola Spoletini
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages129-141
Number of pages13
ISBN (Electronic)9798350395112
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Aug 2024
Event32nd IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, RE 2024 - Reykjavik, Iceland
Duration: 24 Jun 202428 Jun 2024

Publication series

NameProceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Requirements Engineering
ISSN (Print)1090-705X
ISSN (Electronic)2332-6441

Conference

Conference32nd IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, RE 2024
Country/TerritoryIceland
CityReykjavik
Period24/06/2428/06/24

Bibliographical note

© 2024 IEEE. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the University’s Research Publications and Open Access policy.

Keywords

  • Elicitation and Validation
  • Large Language Model
  • Requirement Engineering

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