AI Failures in the Eyes of the Downstream Developer: A First Look at Concerns, Practices, and Challenges

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Gao, Haoyu, Zahedi, Mansooreh, Jiang, Wenxin, Lin, Hong Yi, Davis, James, Treude, Christoph
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Gao, Haoyu
Zahedi, Mansooreh
Jiang, Wenxin
Lin, Hong Yi
Davis, James
Treude, Christoph
author_facet Gao, Haoyu
Zahedi, Mansooreh
Jiang, Wenxin
Lin, Hong Yi
Davis, James
Treude, Christoph
contents With the advancement of AI models, more software systems are adopting AI as a component to facilitate automation. Pre-trained models (PTMs) have become a cornerstone of AI-based software, allowing for rapid integration and development with lower training cost. However, their adoption also introduces failure modes such as data leakage and biased outputs, that may require careful handling by downstream developers. While previous research has proposed taxonomies of these technical concerns and various mitigation strategies, how downstream developers address these issues during the development of general AI-based software when reusing PTMs remains unexplored. Understanding downstream developers' perspectives is essential because they directly influence how these potential failures concerns translate into practice, such as determining whether immediate risks like data leakage or model bias are recognised, mitigated, or inadvertently overlooked in real-world deployments. This study investigates downstream developers' concerns, practices and perceived challenges regarding practical AI failures during the development of AI-based software. To achieve this, we conducted a mixed-method study, including interviews with 16 participants, a survey of 86 practitioners,
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_19444
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle AI Failures in the Eyes of the Downstream Developer: A First Look at Concerns, Practices, and Challenges
Gao, Haoyu
Zahedi, Mansooreh
Jiang, Wenxin
Lin, Hong Yi
Davis, James
Treude, Christoph
Software Engineering
With the advancement of AI models, more software systems are adopting AI as a component to facilitate automation. Pre-trained models (PTMs) have become a cornerstone of AI-based software, allowing for rapid integration and development with lower training cost. However, their adoption also introduces failure modes such as data leakage and biased outputs, that may require careful handling by downstream developers. While previous research has proposed taxonomies of these technical concerns and various mitigation strategies, how downstream developers address these issues during the development of general AI-based software when reusing PTMs remains unexplored. Understanding downstream developers' perspectives is essential because they directly influence how these potential failures concerns translate into practice, such as determining whether immediate risks like data leakage or model bias are recognised, mitigated, or inadvertently overlooked in real-world deployments. This study investigates downstream developers' concerns, practices and perceived challenges regarding practical AI failures during the development of AI-based software. To achieve this, we conducted a mixed-method study, including interviews with 16 participants, a survey of 86 practitioners,
title AI Failures in the Eyes of the Downstream Developer: A First Look at Concerns, Practices, and Challenges
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.19444