In industry, software testing is the primary method to verify and validate the functionality, performance, security, usability, and so on, of software-based systems. Test automation has gained increasing attention in industry over the last decade, following decades of intense research into test automation and model-based testing. However, designing, developing, maintaining and evolving test automation is a considerable effort. Meanwhile, AI's breakthroughs in many engineering fields are opening up new perspectives for software testing, for both manual and automated testing. This paper reviews recent research on AI augmentation in software test automation, from no automation to full automation. It also discusses new forms of testing made possible by AI. Based on this, the newly developed taxonomy, ai4st, is presented and used to classify recent research and identify open research questions.

The minister for artificial intelligence at the German government has spoken about the European vision for AI, especially how to grow and gain trust from non-expert users. Prof. Dr. Ina Schieferdecker, a junior minister in Germany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF), who has artificial intelligence in her portfolio, recently attended an AI Camp in Berlin (or KI-Camp in German, for "künstliche Intelligenz"). She was interviewed there by DW (Deutsche Welle, Germany's answer to the BBC World Service) on how the German government and the European Union can help alleviate concerns about AI among ordinary users of the internet and information technologies. When addressing the question that AI is often seen as a "black box", and the demand for algorithms to be made transparent, Schieferdecker said she saw it differently. "I don't believe that everyone has to understand AI. Not everyone can understand it," she said.

The text has been redacted and altered by the BMBF in addition to DW's normal editorial guidelines. As such, the text does not entirely reflect the audio of the interview as recorded on December 5, 2019. DW: We're in Berlin at an "Artificial Intelligence Camp" organized by the Gesellschaft für Informatik and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, where you head the department for "Research for Digitalization and Innovation." Artificial intelligence is in your remit. And all the people here are experts in the field.