In my last post, I wrote about an article that dove into the uses of AI in software testing.  Given the volume of search engine results that turned up when I started doing some research into the subject area, I thought it was worthwhile to write another piece about it.

The post I chose to write about this time is an introduction to AIST – Artificial Intelligence for Software Testing.  It is defined by Tariq King (the author of the post) as “an emerging field aimed at the development of AI systems to test software, methods to test AI systems, and ultimately designing software that is capable of self-testing and self-healing.”  Most intrigueing to me is the last part — self-healing software.

The organization hosting this blog (of which King is a founding member) is called AISTA, or the Artificial Intelligence for Software Testing Association.  Their mission is to pursue what they call the “Grand Dream” of testing: software that tests and updates itself with little need for human intervention.

King’s post is more of a survey than an in-depth piece.  He identifies three areas to explore when looking to get into AIST: artificial intelligence, software testing, and self-managing systems.  I know a little about the first two, but the third I haven’t touched on much.  Self-managing systems also appear to be the focus of AISTA.  King claims that there is “a general lack of research in the area of self-testable autonomic software”, but that recent technological developments appear to bring solutions closer practicality.

Ultimately, self-managing and self-healing systems are designed to adapt to their environment, modeled (originally by IBM) after the autonomatic nervous system in living creatures.  A self-healing system should be able to maintain homeostasis alongside self-optimization.  And that necessitates self-testing: before making changes to its own code, an autonomous system needs to ensure the change won’t do more harm than good.

So, what does a world of self-testing software mean for software testers?  It means that we may become more like teachers for software systems, moving them out of local pitfalls so that they can continue to grow.  Of course, these systems may be a long way off, and will need extensive human-driven testing and validation before they can start to test themselves.

The robots aren’t coming to take software testing jobs.  Yet.

From the blog CS@Worcester – orscsblog by orscsblog and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.