Artifical Immune Systems, Danger Theory, and the Oracle Problem

The oracle problem - the mechanism by which the output associated with a test is determined to pass or fail - is an important, but frequently neglected, challenge for software testing researchers. Artificial immune systems offer a potentially interesting avenue of attack but using their power as classifiers to distinguish between pass outputs and fail outputs. Danger theory looks for other signals to improve this classification. The aim of this paper is to consider how AIS and danger theory may be applied to the oracle problem.