Architectural decisions in AI-based systems: an ontological view

Abstract

Architecting AI-based systems entails making some decisions that are particular to this type of systems. Therefore, it becomes necessary to gather all necessary knowledge to inform such decisions, and to articulate this knowledge in a form that facilitates knowledge transfer among different AI projects. In this exploratory paper, we first present the main results of a literature survey in the area, and then we propose a preliminary ontology for architectural decision making, which we exemplify using a subset of the papers selected in the literature review. In the discussion, we remark on the variety of decision types and system contexts, highlighting the need to further investigate the current state of research and practice in this area. Besides, we summarize our plans to move along this research area by widening the literature review and incorporating more AI-related concepts to this first version of the ontology.