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Seminars

Week 2 (week commencing 5 March)

The objective of this seminar is to discuss and derive a clearer understanding of the concepts of Software Engineering and Computer Science. As descriptions of discipline areas these descriptions cannot be expected to have precise meanings.

• Have a look at
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debates_within_software_engineering
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science.
• Critically evaluate your experience within your program and compare with those statements?
• What was your level of awareness when you enrolled at UNSW?

This discussion should be viewed as an opportunity to reflect on what you have learnt in your program and what it prepares you for after you graduate.

It is also an opportunity to have a dialogue with your fellow seminar members.

For the first seminar, please print the Engineering and Software Engineering .

Read the references and any other material before the seminar and bring it to the seminar. There are other linked documents and you may wish to print some of those also. In particular, the “Are Software Engineers Engineers” document should be read and perhaps printed.

This can be a very wide ranging seminar. Please form your own list of topics that you would like to discuss. That way you can affect the agenda for your seminar.

Try to organise the seminar discussion using the Six Thinking Hats, so please read the short summary document on that strategy on the class website.

Please remember one thing: you are not coming to the seminar to be supplied information from you facilitator. You are coming to take part in a discussion and that should include initiating discussion.

Also, in general, there are no “right answers”. But this course is very much about your future, so there may be “right questions” for you.

Week 3 (Week commencing March 12)

The seminar this week is concerned with Codes of Ethics and professional issues arising from such codes.

The first phase is to scan the codes linked to the class website. You will find 5 codes:

ACM

ACM/IEEE

Software Engineering code

BCS

ACS

Engineers Australia

Engineers Australia are revising their code of ethics and the current page contains links to the draft proposed Code of Ethics and also the current Code of Ethics. PDF copies of each of these can be found here:
Engineers Aust Draft Code
Engineers Aust Old Code

Scan the codes looking for any points that distinguish the codes and deserve discussion. Such items might be:

• Codes of Conduct (CoC), as distinct from Codes of Ethics (CoE).
• significant differences between the codes;
• significant commonality between the codes.
• spend some time looking at the Engineers Aust draft code and the comments

This exercise might be best done by splitting the class into, say, 5 small groups, each of which are assignment two codes.

In the second part of the seminar the class discussion should be concerned with the questionable activities and procedures of a group of system developers. By questionable is intended possible breaches of professional conduct.

To handle this part of the seminar, again it is suggested that the class splits into 5 small groups with the following roles:

1. represents the team of system developers;
2. represents management of the developers;
3. represents external users of the system who have observed system malfunctions;
4. represents a groups of observers of the discussion by the above groups.

The chosen cases can be based on known examples or they can constructed “on the spot”, none of the discussion is intended to be prearranged, that is the discussion can be created spontaneously and the teams should defend the charges or justify their behaviour.

Particular moral maze: The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), Tuesday 17/03/09, reprinted an obituary on Konrad Dannenberg, first printed in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/10/space-exploration-secondworldwar), a PDF will saved here.

Dannenberg worked, during WW2, in Germany as a rocket scientist/engineer on the the development of V1/V2 missiles. These missiles were used on various cities in Europe, many on London and other UK cities.

After the war Dannenberg moved to the USA where he worked on rocket development for the US space program. Finally, he was the manager of the Saturn program that produced the rocket that took the first astronauts to the moon.

It could be interesting to examine how the CoE and CoC contribute to a discussion of the moral dilemmas to be found in Dannenberg’s case.

Week 4 (week commencing March 19)

This week’s seminars will begin discussion of the Killer Robot story. This story consists of 9 articles that can be found here and also on the Other Sites page of the class web page . This story forms about half of the Killer Robot book, by Richard Epstein. The book contains extra material that is not online, and contains much interesting ethical discussion and references.

The seminar discussion will be based on the first 6 articles. Please read the articles and bring copies of all 9 articles to the seminar. Please come prepared.

There are some differences between the book and public version of the Killer Robot story.

If you look only at the public version, please also look at the extra prelude articles to the above .

Discuss the case as though it is real. It’s not hard to do.

Remember that this story if being revealed through newspaper reports, and therefore possess all the attributes of a real life incident and its investigation. You are not necessarily getting the truth, or at least not the whole truth.

You might pursue the following points of discussion, but facilitators can proceed however they wish:

1. Looking at the first article, why did Bart Matthews say, ”I trust this robot”? What did he mean? It’s a strange thing to say. Perhaps he was saying this to raise his own confidence? There’s nothing definitive here; just get discussion going.
2. Since the third and fourth articles raise the issue of charging a software developer with manslaughter, we discussed this next. Is it plausible that a software developer could be charged with manslaughter? I don’t know, but I don’t see why not. Understand that murder is killing someone with intent; manslaughter is killing without intent. In manslaughter a person has been killed in an accident. So it’s acknowledged that it is an accident, but has there been negligence, criminal negligence?

   Instruction to facilitator: This can be developed into a quite serious discussion. Any person in the class could be charged with manslaughter. Put it to them. You’ve been charged with manslaughter. How do you defend yourself? What would you need to have done to defend yourself against such a charge?

   See Peter Ho’s paper on homicide.

3. Then discuss what actually happened? Collect as many details as possible.
4. What were the potential causes that led to the software malfunction that caused Bart Matthews death?

   Each student in the class should be able to provide a potential cause. All answers can be written on the board, as for the answers to the above questions.

Try to ensure that the answers are coming from all the articles and not being concentrated on just a few articles. If the latter is happening, look for new reasons.

As well as noting the issues, carry out some discussion of the points.

Which are consequences rather than causes? Try to identify significant causes. If the consequences are undesirable, what would you do to prevent them?

Continue the discussion of the Killer Robot story adding the following points.

1. Develop a list of criteria that could be used to decide whether a programmer should be held accountable in a case such as the killer robot. These criteria, if completely or partially satisfied, would indicate that a particular programmer should be held accountable in some way.

   Again refer to Peter Ho’s paper on homicide.

   1. Should Randy Samuels be indicted for manslaughter in your opinon? Did he recklessly cause the death of another? Please observe that there is no legal precedent for a programmer being charged for manslaughter in a case like this.
   2. Discuss the differences between “accidental death by firearm” and “accidental death by poorly programmed robot”. Are the two circumstances fundamentally different? Should the law make a distinction between these two circumstances?
2. Article 2. Killer Robot Developers Worked Under Enormous Stress

   Make a list of arguments for and against Ray Johnsons Ivory Snow Theory. Are your points valid regardless of the kind of system being considered? Are there systems for which the Ivory Snow Theory makes sense? Are there systems for which it does not make sense?

3. Article 3. Killer Robot Programmer was Prima Donna
   1. List desirable traits of a programming team member. These traits should include talents and personality traits. Prioritise these in order of importance. Consider a homogeneous team team with five people as you described. Does this team seem like a good team? Now shuffle the list of traits to create descriptions for five people with different characteristics. Would this heterogeneous team be better than the homogeneous team you derived in the first part of this problem? Why?
   2. Is it a good idea to take on someone elses responsibilities on a team? What are the implications of doing so? What would happen if everyone on the team started to behave this way?
4. Article 4. Killer Robot Project Mired in Controversy Right from Start

   Was it right for Sam Reynolds to accept his appointment as Robbie CX30 project leader? Who is in the penumbra of this decision? Who is hurt? Who benefits? What are the possible implications of his lack of technical expertise in the team effort? Can he more than compensate with good leadership skills?

5. Article 5. Fallen Project Director Accused of Conflict of Interest in Killer Robot Case

   Cramer’s conflict of interest is clearly unethical. But why is it unethical? Discuss the penumbra of his decision to use the SHEOL CASE tool. Who is hurt? Who benefits? Consider the following ethical lapses: lying, stealing, cheating. Do these words apply to what John Cramer is trying to do?

6. Article 6. The Killer Robot Interface

   List ethical issues that might arise becuase of poor user interface design. Part of this question is to see the various ways in which users can be hurt by a poor user interface. Describe the ways in which a user interface might lie or steal.

7. Article 7. Software Engineer Challenges Authenticity of Killer Robot Software Tests

   Generate a list of suspects you believe should be held accountable in some manner for the killer robot incident.

8. Article 8. Silicon Techtronics Employee Admits Faking Software Tests
   1. Should life critical software be subject to federal testing in the same manner as prescription drugs? Imagine someone faking the results of a drug test to get a drug out into the marketpalce. Is that person a worse ehtical offender than Cindy Yardley, or are the offences similar in nature?
   2. Was it ethical, in your opinion, for Max Worthington to play the role of “whistle blower” by giving the press evidence of employee monitoring at Silicon Techtronics and by revealing who was responsible for the faked software tests? Look at this issue with who was hurt and who benefited from his decision. Do you consider the documents that Worthington gave to the press stolen property?
9. Article 9. A Conversation with Dr Harry Yoder
   1. Do you think that ethics and religion are related, or are they two different things? To what extent are ethical values rooted in religion? Can an atheist be ethical? Can a religious person be unethical? Can standards for a profession be designed without explicit reference to a particular form of religious belief?
   2. Do you agree that the ancient Jewish tradition concerning the shedding of innocent blood applies to the killer robot case? Is this a good model for adjudicating other computer accidents?

Week 5 (week commencing March 26)

Therac 25 case study.

Objectives

to get a clear picture of

the Therac-25 machine:

what it was; what it consisted of; and what it was used for.

the accidents:

what accidents occurred; details of each accident.

causes of the problems:

details of all causes.

context of accidents:

understand the situations of the accidents.

how the accidents were handled:

what action was taken.

Ariane 5 disaster:

are there similarities with the Ariane 5 failure?

reason for failures:

what would you say are the real —as distinct from superficial— reasons for the Therac 25 failures?

Material for discussion

Full report of the Therac-25 case

For a full report of the Therac-25 case you should consult ”An Investigation of the Therac-25 Accidents” (see Papers/Leverson et al on this web site).

Teaching material on Therac-25

You should also look at the computingcases.org for a breakdown of the case. You will probably find this much more digestible than the Leverson report.

Wikipedia

You could also consult the Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac_25 .

Other material

There is also a book appendix, Medical Devices: The Therac-25.

You should bring a copies of the Leverson investigation paper to the seminar. This report has very full pages.

You should also consult the teaching material at computingcases.org.

Week 6 (week commencing April 2)

This seminar deals with dataveillance, which is the basis of a lot of modern surveillance.

It should be an objective of this seminar —indeed all seminars— to build well structured ethical arguments. A common weakness in ethical arguments is to identify that some broad activity clearly presents ethical issues, and then the argument becomes concerned with whether the broad activity is ethical or unethical. It is rarely that simple.

Roger Clarke (ANU) coined the name ”dataveillance” in the late 1980 and he has a large website at http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/ on dataveillance.

Get a copy of

• Introduction to Dataveillance and Information Privacy, and Definitions of Terms
• What’s Privacy? , and
• Dataveillance — 15 Years On

More information can be found at http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/.

1. What is dataveillance?
2. Is it immoral to collect data about other people?
3. What personal data is currently being collected?
4. What new opportunities are there to collect even more personal data?
5. How can dataveillance be regulated?
6. What advice would you give to non-specialists about safeguarding personal information?

Discuss the contents of Dataveillance — 15 Years On.

When is a Surveillance Society OK?
http://www.practicalethicsnews.com/practicalethics/2008/06/lex-orwell-when.html Lex Orwell

Weeks 7 (week commencing April 16)

“Debate” activity.

Week 8 (week commencing 26th April)

This seminar is concerned with Rawls’ Theory of Justice
see

• Rawls’ Mature Theory of Social Justice: An Introduction for Students
  
• A Theory of Justice

also How Good is Good Enough paper of Collins, et al.

This paper is available from the Papers page of the course web site. Please study this paper before attending your seminar.

In the seminar you should consider the following:

1. Discuss Rawls’ ethical principles. In particular:

   Two principles of fairness

   Veil of ignorance

2. Discuss the application of these principles in the case studies discussed in How Good is Good Enough:
   • What happened?
   • Who was involved?
   • What went wrong?
   • What should have happened?
3. Discuss the impact of this form of analysis on SE.
4. Is this form of analysis well suited to anaysing ethical situations in computing?
5. Revisit the Therac 25 case to see if this theory would help analyse that case.
6. Do Rawls’ principles correspond with Stephen Cohen’s outline of the foundations of ethics?

Week 9 (week commencing 31 April)

IP: copyright, patents, licensing, etc

Most people will have a view on these things as they can’t be avoided.

Have a look at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity.html before you start and then discuss individual attitudes to IP:

• do you believe in IP, that is, ownership of intellectual property?
• how do you justify your position?
• it is easy to arrive at a realisation that there are good arguments either way, that is you have one of these ethical dilemmas.

At that point, it will be worth looking at

• http://danny.oz.au/free-software/, a free software advocacy site, and in particular
• Against Intellectual Property, the “free software” view of IP as expressed by Prof. Brian Martin from the University of Wollongong. The paper is also available in PDF.

  This paper is chapter 3 of the Brian Martin’s book “Information Liberation” by Brian Martin. The complete book can be found at http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/98il/.

  A review of the book can be found at http://dannyreviews.com/h/Information_Liberation.html.

This discussion drifts easily into open source development and the free software movement.

A few comments are added here on copyright and patent, as some students are unclear about the distinction.

Copyright:

is concerned with the form of expression of something. Notice that any ideas are not protected only the way it is expressed. This might be an essay, a book, a piece of music, a performance of music, a piece of software. Notice that it is “form of expression” that is protected, so translation into another language, or into machine code does not avoid the copyright, indeed it infringes the copyright. Copyright in Australia does not require any registration, nor does it require a copyright notice, although that is recommended. Copyright around the world is recognised by the Berne agreement.

Patent:

is concerned with the means of production or implementation. You cannot patent an idea, you can patent something to be produced, and you must show that it can be produced. You can’t patent “blue sky”. Notice that patenting involves publication: all patents are “world readable”. Patents do not automatically transfer to other countries: you must pay for extending to other countries and the exercise can get very expensive. DNA patents are “interesting”.

Trade secret:

is an alternative to patent. You don’t publish and there is no expiry date. You simply swear everyone to secrecy. Clearly doesn’t work for computer software.

You might like to have a look at

http://progfree.org/Patents/industry-at-risk.html

and decide whether somehow software is different to other manufacturing industry to which patents have applied for 200 years.

Consider:

• IBM holds patent #4,965,765 which covers the use of different colours to distinguish the nesting level of nested expressions.
• Patent #5,249,290 covers assignment of client requests to the server process having the least load.
• Patent #4,941,125 covers using a digital camera in conjunction with character recognition software to store and index documents on a CD ROM.

I’ll leave it to classes to work out issues to be discussed, but you might like to tackle the following.

On the one hand much software looks like mathematics, so should we patent mathematics? Patents were never intended to cover ideas.

But on the other hand, if we take the concept of Software Engineering seriously then surely an engineering process should allow for some patent capability?

This gets to perhaps the nub of the issue: how do we —or if you like, do we— provide for some form of ownership of invention within software engineering? Of course, you can take Brian Martin’s approach and broaden this question to all areas.

Some other possible questions:

1. Describe situations where IP produces unfair outcomes.
2. How much should somebody profit from their ideas?
3. Do we have free speech in Australia?
4. Do you believe in IP?
5. How common/rare are good ideas?
6. Is there such a thing as an original idea?

Week 10 (week commencing 7 May)

This seminar is concerned with Whistleblowing, which generally describes a person making claims that contradict the statements or claims being made by a private company or public organisation. This frequently produces a situation in which the whistleblower is ostracised from the organisation or even the community.

See

The Whistleblower’s Ordeal

Whistleblowing in the Australian Public Sector

Ethics in Computing

Roger Boisjoly

Whistleblowing

Whistleblowers: Company auditors’ obligations

Protection for whistleblowers

It is suggested that the class breaks into small groups and each group studies one of the above articles, or any other article on whistleblowing and presents their ideas to the class.

Weeks 11, 12 & 13 (weeks commencing (16, 23 & 30 May

Student seminars