Towards Trustworthy Edge Intelligence: Insights from Voice-Activated Services

Abstract

In an age of surveillance capitalism, anchoring the design of emerging smart services in trustworthiness is urgent and important. Edge Intelligence, which brings together the fields of AI and Edge computing, is a key enabling technology for smart services. Trustworthy Edge Intelligence should thus be a priority research concern. However, determining what makes Edge Intelligence trustworthy is not straight forward. This paper examines requirements for trustworthy Edge Intelligence in a concrete application scenario of voice-activated services. We contribute to deepening the understanding of trustworthiness in the emerging Edge Intelligence domain in three ways: firstly, we propose a unified framing for trustworthy Edge Intelligence that jointly considers trustworthiness attributes of AI and the IoT. Secondly, we present research outputs of a tangible case study in voice-activated services that demonstrates interdependencies between three important trustworthiness attributes: privacy, security and fairness. Thirdly, based on the empirical and analytical findings, we highlight challenges and open questions that present important future research areas for trustworthy Edge Intelligence.