Sunday, March 6, 2011

IT16 Case Study 12: The KILLER ROBOT

Read the fictitious KILLER ROBOT case found at the web site for the Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science at www.onlineethics.com (look under Computer Science and Internet cases) or go directly to this link http://www.onlineethics.org/Resources/19049/killerrobot.aspx .

The case begins with the indictment of a programmer for manslaughter for writing faulty codes that resulted in the death of a robot operator. Slowly, over the course of many articles, you are introduced to several factors within the corporation that contributed to the accident. Read this case and answer the following questions.

a. Responsibility for an accident is rarely clearly defined and able to be traced to one or two individuals or causes. In this fictitious case, it is clear that a larger number of people share responsibility for the accident. Identify all the people who you think were at least partially responsible for the death of Bart Matthews, and why you think so?

b. Imagine that you are the leader of a task force assigned to correct the problems uncovered by this accident. Develop your “top-ten” list of actions that need to be taken to avoid future problems. What process would you use to identify the most critical actions?

c. If you were in Ms. Yardley’s position, what would you have done when Rays Jonhson told you to fake the test result? How would you justify your decision?

Instructions:
  • Your answers should be no less than 200 words each.
  • Due: March 14, 2011

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