411–420 of 611 posts
From the article: Paul Cassell, a lawyer for victims’ family members, said he plans to ask the federal judge on the case to reject the deal and “simply set the matter for a public trial, so that all the facts surrounding the case will be aired in a fair and open forum before a jury.” Hard to disagree
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Yes. This might be unfamiliar to software engineers, but there's a reason mechanical engineering and architecture (there might be more, but these are the ones I'm familiar with) schools put students through at least a semester of ethics classes. We are literally the last line of defense in a lot of industries. From the first line of the ASME code of ethics: > Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welf…
This is a noble goal but unrealistic and unfair at scale. Also it belays just a wildly unrealistic understanding of how risk distribution works in corporations. It’s as if in your mind one engineer makes the singular call and sees the entire picture of the project and its risks. Where as more likely a downstream worker who very likely had an incomplete picture will be blamed. Also the personal insult is not needed. I…
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Yes. This might be unfamiliar to software engineers, but there's a reason mechanical engineering and architecture (there might be more, but these are the ones I'm familiar with) schools put students through at least a semester of ethics classes. We are literally the last line of defense in a lot of industries. From the first line of the ASME code of ethics: > Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welf…
This is a noble goal but unrealistic and unfair at scale. Also it belays just a wildly unrealistic understanding of how risk distribution works in corporations. It’s as if in your mind one engineer makes the singular call and sees the entire picture of the project and its risks. Where as more likely a downstream worker who very likely had an incomplete picture will be blamed. Also the personal insult is not needed. I…
To a certain extent this is true. To extend the OP's example, a mechanical or civil engineer who stamps a building design takes responsibility for that design being safe enough for public use. The same could apply to the MCAS design, or the quality engineer who signs off on how the plane was put together. These are not "romatic notions"; the latter is already common practice in aerospace. Do you think if a QE stamped that the door bolts were installed should not bear responsibility for the bolts being missing?
In those cases where the engineer is supposed to be aware of the risks, there should be processes in place to account for, and mitigate, those risks. For the example of MCAS, the software was categorized as hazardous in the hazard analysis document. As such, Boeing processes required it to have redundant inputs as a default. It did not (the redundant sensor was sold an optional equipment); as such, I think the engineer who signed off on the hazard analysis may bear some responsibility. If, on the other hand, there were no business processes in place to require redundancy, that seems like a CEO responsibility.
"We plead guilty for our poor test coverage"
It's more than test coverage though. Their spec had the same glaring error. It's a design, management agreement, spec, review failure. The tester could have said something because they realized the design is bullshit, but by that time no competent testers hired by Boeing any more, it was all outsourced to the cheapest bidder.
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95% of US inmates are on plea deal, which means the prosecutor never had to prove the charges before the (potentially) criminal admitted it. It is unfair for those who admitted the charges because they believed they couldn’t defend themselves further. So the Boeing trial being on plea deal would be on paar with that standard…
Can you explain your line of thinking for saying this? Because to me, the standard for such a big company, getting so many public dollars, that is responsible for the safety of a ton of Americans (and more) should obviously be more strict (for at least those reasons) compared to an individual who can't afford a good lawyer who had just a little too much weed on them.
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Depends on if you care about outcome or morality. Already now we use terms like punishment, reward and adverserial competition between neural networks.
We do have those terms. The way they are used is not relevant here.
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Whether to do something you know is morally wrong or refuse and quit is always your pay grade. And don't give me the Yuppie Nuremberg Defense. "I was just following orders... because I've got a mortgage!" That doesn't fly when lives are on the line.
I think people seem to have a very romantic notion that there is some meeting where all the engineers get together and decide whether or not they are going to kill their users or not.
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Under this theory I think maybe you could get the C suite for negligent homicide, but murder seems like a huge stretch for anything but a kangaroo court.
I don't think that I mentioned a specific crime in my comment.
> If the deal is accepted, it could complicate Boeing’s ability to sell products to the U.S. government as a felon, though the company could seek waivers. About 32% of Boeing’s nearly $78 billion in revenue last year came from its defense, space and security unit. My understanding is that getting security clearance involves a bunch of checks and statements about your character, and having a federal felony conviction…
Makes me think a lot of Taleb's "Skin in the Game", which emphasizes that a healthy system cannot have leaders who accept rewards without risks. This deal means Boeing leadership can continue to behave without skin in the game.