Re:The programmer behind the THERAC-25 Fiasco was never found
by wpietri on Monday December 02, 2019 @03:08PM
(#21686308)
That is not what the NTSB said.
Responsibility is not zero sum. The safety driver is responsible. But so are the people who sent out robot cars with a single safety driver, as they knew or should have known that paying attention in low-interaction situations for many hours in a row is not something humans reliably do.
The Uber managers and execs are also responsible, in that they set up the system that led to needless death.
But none of that absolves the programmers, some of whom did things that they knew or should have known were dangerous, and who did not make sure that the system they were committing code for was set up for proper safety.
Your notion that the only job of programmers is to meet the spec is one I deeply disagree with. We're not Amazon warehouse workers, desperate for a job and blindly following whatever orders come our way. We're highly paid professionals whose job is to understand what we're building and what effects it has. I think that's true for any sort of coding, but I believe it's very obviously true for life-critical systems. If we can't handle the responsibility, we shouldn't cash the (quite large) checks.
Responsibility is not zero sum. The safety driver is responsible. But so are the people who sent out robot cars with a single safety driver, as they knew or should have known that paying attention in low-interaction situations for many hours in a row is not something humans reliably do.
The Uber managers and execs are also responsible, in that they set up the system that led to needless death.
But none of that absolves the programmers, some of whom did things that they knew or should have known were dangerous, and who did not make sure that the system they were committing code for was set up for proper safety.
Your notion that the only job of programmers is to meet the spec is one I deeply disagree with. We're not Amazon warehouse workers, desperate for a job and blindly following whatever orders come our way. We're highly paid professionals whose job is to understand what we're building and what effects it has. I think that's true for any sort of coding, but I believe it's very obviously true for life-critical systems. If we can't handle the responsibility, we shouldn't cash the (quite large) checks.