Comment by SCdF
6 days ago
Effectively tortured to death.
One of the things that frustrates me with how ethics is taught in computer science is that we use examples like Therac 25, and people listen in horror, then their takeaway is frequently "well thank god I don't work on medical equipment".
The fact that it's medical equipment is a distraction. All software can cause harm to others. All of it. You need to care about all of it.
That’s why the “died by suicide” language can be problematic. These people were driven by several factors and they were left with no choice.
"Driven to suicide" may be more accurate. And damning.
Therac 25 is exactly what I thought of when reading this story. The software didn't have direct hardware control to kill patients with radiation, but it still resulted in thousands of victims.
I work on satellites that are intended for use in missile tracking. If I fail in the software, it might not "kill people", but people will die due to the failures.
Though, I used to work on fighter jets and SAMs. People do die due to my work.
[flagged]
Look your question is not unreasonable and the s answer is interesting, but your tone implies loathing and belittling.
Which maybe we (I also work in "defense") deserve to burn in hell, but who are you to be self righteous? For example, if you ever put up a Ukraine flag sticker you'd be a hypocrite too.
(Shrug) Some people need killing.
Jesus I desperately wish real ethics classes were required for computer science degrees
Ethic classes are pointless without ethical liability and accountability of people causing suffering. Yes, even the Jira javascript ticket punchers hould be accountable for what they do.
"ethics classes are useless because no one would willingly choose to act ethically" is an interesting stance to take...
The best available evidence is that ethics classes reduce ethical behaviour.
I'm going to need a source on that
In the UK they are I think? Well if they want to be BCS accredited.