Case Studies
CSCI 3921w Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues in Computing
Adriana Picoral
Group Activity
In your group, pick a case study and build a short timeline:
- Before: What warnings existed? Who raised them?
- Harm: Who was harmed? Who was not?
- After: What changed (law, policy, practice, nothing)?
- At which point on the timeline could an engineer have changed the outcome?
- Was the harm caused by automation bias? Did it cause unequal harms?
- Who bore its risks, and who got its benefits?
- Has any regulation been created as a result?
Be prepared to share with the class
Choose a case study
- AT&T Network Collapse, 1990
- Patriot missile, 1991
- Climate Orbiter Crash, 1999
- LAX outage, 2007
- Software Error at Knight Capital, 2012
- Dutch childcare fraud risk model, 2013
- Facebook amplifies hate, 2012-2017
- Robodebt, Australia, 2016–2019
- Boeing 737 MAX, 2018–19
Or pick another computing technology you know
Choose a case study
Or pick another computing technology you know
Group Discussion
- Where do you see automation bias and unequal harm today?
- If you could pass one proactive law about current transformative technologies, what would it be? What disaster would it be trying to prevent?
Journal Writing
Reflect on what you liked and disliked about this lecture, what you learned, and what you wished you’d learned.
- What you learned from the lecture and discussion – this can be something that surprised you, something you had not considered before, a new way of thinking about something
- What you wish you’d learned from the discussion – this can be questions you still have and questions you would like to explore further
- Anything you liked of disliked