TECHNOLOGY CREATORS… Time to take responsibility

“To err is human but to really foul things up you need a computer” quotes Paul Ehrlich.

The computer history has witnessed major disasters which had led to loss of people, property and money due to the failure of so called “thinkable machines”.
Failure of technology in a field can lead to major disasters. Therefore “technological disasters” when taken together as a phrase suggests situations in which large numbers of people, property, infrastructure, or economic activity are directly and adversely affected by major industrial accidents, severe pollution incidents, nuclear accidents, air crashes , major fires, or explosion. But is it all due to the failure of a technology? The direct causes of these disasters or emergency situations are identifiable human actions, deliberate or otherwise. In this article we will identify that the causes of these disasters are mostly from the generalized set of human errors and unethical practice of their profession, irrespective of the field of disaster.
On analyzing the tech disasters, a common pattern of negligence and errors can be identified. Taking into consideration the technological disasters it can be found that there is a recursive pattern of similar flaws which leads to the major disasters. To start with, these disasters were the result of a combination of
- Legal
- Technological
- Organizational
- Human errors.

These four forms the major part of the generalized set of errors responsible for failures. The results of the errors are further exacerbated by the failure of containment and safety measures and by a complete absence of community information and emergency procedures during the disasters.
When we talk of organizational errors, it involves disputes among inter and intra team members working on the same project, lack of communication among the team members and personal gains (cost effectiveness).Followed by technological errors like incorrect assumptions while coding, incorrect usage of the software and error in logical calculations. None the less human errors form a big part of the fault pie chart. Human errors are mostly because of the negligence and unethical behavior of the professional at their workplace. The failure to review the final design plan and the failure of efficient test plans, add to the reason leading to the major disasters.
In order to discuss the pattern of errors, I will throw some light on major disasters:

Therac-25 tragedy
(The field of medicine has also witnessed tragic disasters due to the failure of software in their field. The most famous is the case of Therac-25. Canada’s Therac-25 radiation therapy machine malfunctioned and delivered lethal radiation doses to patients. Because of a subtle bug called a race condition, a technician could accidentally configure Therac-25 so the electron beam would fire in high-power mode without the proper patient shielding. The above disasters were the result of the human error and negligence.)
What actually went wrong which lead to this disaster? The general consensus is that the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited is to blame. There was only one person programming the code for this system and he largely did all the testing. The machine was tested for only 2700 hours of use, but for code which controls such a critical machine, many more hours should have been put in to the testing phase. Also Therac-25 was tested as a whole machine rather than in separate modules. Testing in separate modules would have discovered many of the bugs. Also, if the AECL believed that there were problems with the Therac-25 right after the first incident then it is possible that most of the 5 other incidents could have been avoided and possibly the 3 fatalities.
In another case of Kansas tragedy, due to disputes between G.C.E. and Havens,
• The design changed from a single to a double hanger rod, simply because Havens did not want to thread the entire rod in order to install the washer and nut.
• Another problem was the lack of communication between G.C.E. and Havens. The drawing prepared by G.C.E. was only preliminary sketches that Havens interpreted to be the finalized drawings. Another large error was G.C.E.’s failure to review the final design which would have allowed them to catch the error in increasing the load on the connections.
It can be concluded, that the negligence and human errors can be seen as a part of a generalized set whose subsets leads to major disasters.
Due to unprofessional, unethical and ignorant behavior of the employees, their careless decisions had lead to major disasters.Taking the software disasters into account, it’s clearly visible that the cannons of the software engineering code of ethics were breached at the stage of decision making which had finally lead to the failures. If the associated software firms would have been stringent towards the code of ethics, these tragic disasters could have been easily avoided.

But the question arises over here that why these firms were unable to adhere themselves to the fundamentals of the code of ethics?

OR

Can we say the software code of ethics is an inflexible pot-pouri of principles?

Human is infallible, viable of making errors so when it designs the product, the testing of the product is as essential phase as the designing. But the companies due to time lag are not able to devote the required time span to the testing phase.

In Hartford incident, the programmer of the CAD software used to design the coliseum incorrectly assumed the steel roof supports would only face pure compression. This design was also supposed to be delivered on time, and thus the smallest designing flaw lead to the biggest disaster.

ACM/ IEEE had created their cannons, but some of their cannons are overlapping. In order to fulfill client’s interest sometimes the firms are ready to compromise with essentials of public, product, management and judgment principles. There is no authority to check whether the code of ethics is being strictly followed or not. Similar failures of software had been repeated in history and had cause major loss to the society.

This problem stated above is not only with the software community but other engineering communities face the same. There is much more to be added to the software code of ethics in other to make it more profound and grounded, which might also help in avoiding future disasters. In comparison with code of ethics of other profession, my study suggests following points should be added.

- Software engineers who have knowledge or reason to believe that another person or firm may be in violation of any of the provisions of the “code of ethics” shall present such information to the proper authority in writing and shall cooperate with the proper authority in furnishing such further information or assistance as may be required.

- Software engineers should seek opportunities to be of constructive service in civic affairs and work for the advancement of the safety, health and well-being of their communities, and the protection of the environment through the practice of sustainable development.

- In order to make software professionals more vigilant towards their responsibilities, they shall not affix their signatures or seals to any engineering plan or document dealing with subject matter in which they lack competence by virtue of education or experience or to any such plan or document not reviewed or prepared under their supervisory control.
“To err is human but to really foul up things you need nothing more than a careless, irresponsible human mind” .

My personal opinion states that, however hard we can strive to make professionals realize their responsibility, by creating code of ethics but this disasters will continue to happen until each professional realize their own responsibility towards the public and society. There is need of revolution within ourselves in order to realize responsibility of each decision taken by us.

By Heena Rastogi:

She is currently  a graduate student. As a part of an under graduate curriculum she did research on technological disasters and code of ethics by ACM-IEEE for SE in the light of these disasters..