National foreword

This British Standard is the UK implementation of ISO/IEC 5338:2023.

The UK participation in its preparation was entrusted to Technical Committee ART/1, Artificial Intelligence.

A list of organizations represented on this committee can be obtained on request to its committee manager.

Contractual and legal considerations

This publication has been prepared in good faith, however no representation, warranty, assurance or undertaking (express or implied) is or will be made, and no responsibility or liability is or will be accepted by BSI in relation to the adequacy, accuracy, completeness or reasonableness of this publication. All and any such responsibility and liability is expressly disclaimed to the full extent permitted by the law.

This publication is provided as is, and is to be used at the recipient’s own risk.

The recipient is advised to consider seeking professional guidance with respect to its use of this publication.

This publication is not intended to constitute a contract. Users are responsible for its correct application.

Compliance with a British Standard cannot confer immunity from legal obligations.

This British Standard was published under the authority of the Standards Policy and Strategy Committee on 29 February 2024.

Foreword

ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical committees established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical activity. ISO and IEC technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the work.

The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular, the different approval criteria needed for the different types of document should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives or www.iec.ch/members_experts/refdocs).

ISO and IEC draw attention to the possibility that the implementation of this document may involve the use of (a) patent(s). ISO and IEC take no position concerning the evidence, validity or applicability of any claimed patent rights in respect thereof. As of the date of publication of this document, ISO and IEC had not received notice of (a) patent(s) which may be required to implement this document. However, implementers are cautioned that this may not represent the latest information, which may be obtained from the patent database available at www.iso.org/patents and https://patents.iec.ch. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not constitute an endorsement.

For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO's adherence to the World Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) see www.iso.org/iso/foreword.html. In the IEC, see www.iec.ch/understanding-standards.

This document was prepared by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, Subcommittee SC 42, Artificial intelligence.

Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A complete listing of these bodies can be found at www.iso.org/members.html and www.iec.ch/national-committees.

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems in the fields of computer vision and image recognition, natural language processing, fraud detection, automated vehicles, predictive maintenance and planning have achieved remarkable successes. To build and maintain an AI system, it is an efficient approach to extend the life cycle processes for a traditional software system to include AI-specific life cycle characteristics.

An example of such a specific characteristic of an AI system life cycle is where a system employs machine learning (ML) using training data and it becomes necessary to retrain the ML model using new training data that is more representative of current production data.

ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207 describes software life cycle processes and ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 describes system life cycle processes. While these life cycle processes are broadly applicable to AI systems, they require the introduction of new processes and the modification of existing processes to accommodate the characteristics of AI systems. This document extends the current generic life cycle process International Standards to make them applicable for AI systems so that the AI system life cycle can benefit from established models and existing practices. Some AI systems are in use in areas which are related to safety, such as health care or traffic control. Such safety critical AI systems need special attention and considerations as described in ISO/IEC TR 5469^[⁵^].

Integrating the AI system life cycle into existing processes delivers efficiency gains, better adoption of AI and mutual understanding among AI system stakeholders as defined in ISO/IEC 22989. Such an integrated life cycle approach embraces the fact that AI systems typically are a combination of AI-specific elements and traditional elements such as source code and databases.

This document provides further details on AI system life cycle processes as discussed in ISO/IEC 42001^[¹⁸^].

1 Scope

This document defines a set of processes and associated concepts for describing the life cycle of AI systems based on machine learning and heuristic systems. It is based on ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 and ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207 with modifications and additions of AI-specific processes from ISO/IEC 22989 and ISO/IEC 23053.

This document provides processes that support the definition, control, management, execution and improvement of the AI system in its life cycle stages. These processes can also be used within an organization or a project when developing or acquiring AI systems. When an element of an AI system is traditional software or a traditional system, the software life cycle processes in ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207 and the system life cycle processes in ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 can be used to implement that element.

2 Normative references

3 Terms and definitions

4 Abbreviated terms

5 Key concepts

5.1 General

5.2 AI system concepts

5.3 AI system life cycle model

5.4 Process concepts

6 AI System life cycle processes

6.1 Agreement processes

6.2 Organizational project-enabling processes

6.3 Technical management processes

6.4 Technical processes

Bibliography

BS ISO/IEC 5338:2023

Information technology. Artificial intelligence. AI system life cycle processes

Current

Published:

29 Feb 2024