# Computer Ethics - lesson 1
#### Viola Schiaffonati
###### 19 September 2017
### Engineering Responsibility

#### An example: the **Challenger disaster**

In 1986 the first launch of a space shuttle with a civilian onboard,
the shuttle exploded after 73 seconds from takeoff.

Years later the cause was found to be the O-rings (rubber sealing rings) that
failed to work properly at low temperatures, so fuel started to leak and caught
fire.

There is a difference between *legal responsibility* and *moral responsibility*

The **legal resposibility** was attributed to the o-rings failure, and nobody
was blamed, but the **moral responsibility** is to be found elsewhere.

In July 1985 an engineer at Morton Thiokol (supplier of the O-rings)
communicated his concernment about the reliability of the O-rings

A project group was set up to investigate the problem but with low funds and
information, and the research was not successful.

The night before the flight:

The launching had already been delayed 5 times (partly for weather related
reasong: low temperatures at night)

Morton Thiokol had warned NASA to not go ahead with the launch below 11 degrees
Celsius.

NASA claimed that *the data were insufficient to declare the launch unsafe*

This is strange because usually we need data to declare something *safe*, not
the contrary

There was a second conference in which MT decided that the launch had to be done
(in view of a contract extension)

The points that emerge is that:
- There is a kind of responsibility from MT in delivering a defective/untested
  product and making a financial decision.
- Boisjoly also could have contacted directly NASA about the problem.

After a __Presidential committee__ the blame of the incident was given to a
communication problem inside NASA and between the suppliers.

The space mission was suspended for 2 years and the communication structure of
nasa was changed by involving more the engineering part.

Definitions:
- **accountability** is necessary to be **responsible** of something

For example Boisjoly was not accountable as an engineer, regarding the project,
but he wa also a *human being* and as such he could have warned NASA for
example.

- **Responsibility** is linked to the **role** that you have in a situation.
- Responsibility based on *roles*
    - **Moral responsibility**
    - **Professional responsibility**
- Responsibility:
    - active responsibility
    - passive responsibility

#### Passive Responsibility

Is a kind of *backward-looking* responsibility, which
is relevan after something undesirable occurred.
- **accountability**
NASA was accountable to the family of the victims, society and sitting judge.
- **blameworthiness**
For someone to be blameworthy, the following conditions are needed:
- wrong-doing: NASA had to prove the flight to be safe
- causal contribution: Both NASA project team and Morton Thiokol management
  could have postponed the launch
- foreseeability: knowing the consequences of an action
- freedom of action: NASA team project, MT and Boisjoly were under presure but the
  pressure was not enough to declare that they lacked freedom of action.

#### Active Responsibility

It's the responsibility *before* something bad happens.

> Prevent the negative effects of technology but also realizing certain positive
> effects (bovens 1998)

Artifacts can try to implement in their design some values, like "do not drive
when drunk" or "do not use much water"

Computer engineers have a code provided by ACM

It requires:
- perception of violations
- consideration of the consequences
- Autonomy
- ...

#### Ideals of engineering
Are all ideals of engineers morally commendable

ideals may be:
- Behaving in the profession for the common good and not following pressure.
- Try to obtain technological advancement / be an efficient engineer
- Technological enthusiasm

Technological enthisiasm may have consequences, like in the development of
Google Earth.

negative effect were overlooked, like privacy and security issues.
One of the boardmen of Google, Marissa Meyer said that "Engineers don't need to
care about consequences, they are only committed to find the best technical
solution"

- Effectiveness: extent to which an established goal is achieved
- Efficiency: the ratio between the goal achieved and the effort required
consequences

They are apparently neutral, objective and measurable
example: Taylorism and the idea of scientific management, which attempt to
design a production process and ultimately society.

Also the **professional practice** of engineers is not morally neutral.

#### Engineers versus managers
Three models of dealing with this conflict:
- separatism
- technocracy
- whistle-blowing

**Separatism** is the idea that scientist and engineers should apply the
technical inputs but the management an political organs should make the value
decisions.

Boisjoly was of this opinion stating that he would have not done anything more
of what he already did.

**Technocracy** Frederick Taylor proposed that engineers should take over the
role of managers in the governancce of companies and that of politicians in the
governance of society.

**Whistle-blowing**
Renounce to your professional duty and make a sign that something is not
working, this kind of behaviour is punished by a legal point of view.

#### Collingridge dilemma (Collingridge 1980)
- It is not possible to predict the consequences of new technologies in the
  earlier phases
- Once the negative consequences materialize, it is difficult to change the
  direction of technological development.

**Constructive Technological Assessment** (CTA) is an approach in which TA-like
effors are carried out in parallel to technological development.