Professional Responsibility in Computer Science

My freshman year at Cornell University, I was sitting in a Computer Programming and Meteorology class when Professor Mark Wysocki(the New York State Climatologist) succeeded in attracting me to the study of computer graphic information systems through nothing more than a single sentence. He argued that, when a company adopts computer programming as the chief form of technology, it frees itself to pursue new boundaries, because new computer languages can always be created for each new problem.. I was immediately fascinated by the idea that the computer programming can alter individual lives, affect one's identity, and perhaps even shape national identity.

In the novel Frankenstein, the article Prometheus and the speech “Worship the Spirit of Criticism” there are many examples of why people should hold responsibility for what they create. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is about a young man who wants to create life from death, and in doing so, it affects his life greatly. In Prometheus, There is a titan who wants to give the gift of fire to humans, but its outcome was bad, and he suffered the consequences for it. “Worship the Spirit of Criticism”, a scientist, Louis Pasteur, expresses how he feels people should take responsibility for what they create. Creators are fully responsible because what they create impacts the world in either a negative or positive way.

[20points] A team of Developers work together with customers and users to define requirements and specify what the proposed system should do. If once it is built, the system works accordingly to requirements specifications but harms someone physically or financially, who is responsible and why?

The first part of the Association of Information Technology Professionals document, lists six major stockholders that IT professionals are obligated towards. These include: management, fellow members, society, employers, college or university and country. The Standards of Conduct then further break down four of these areas (management, fellow members, society and employers). First; however, it reminds the reader that these are rules above and beyond “the appropriate laws of country and community.” Some common bullet points within each section are as follows. Firstly, most talk about having an obligation to have up-to-date knowledge. Secondly, almost all talk about either taking responsibility for your work or at the very least not taking credit for the work of others. Thirdly, honesty is a big player whether that be through misinforming employers or society to interactions with fellow members. Along with honesty is the command to protect confidential information that is placed in our authority. Lastly, in every section there is a focus on not taking advantage of the knowledge or inexperience of others for personal gain.

Schuman makes the point early on that she feels that the computer is not fault but rather the student who makes the decision on what use to use the computer for. Schuman exemplifies this problem when she

When are people responsible for their actions? According to Simon Blackburn's theory of "Soft Determinism" people are responsible for their actions as long as true and available information is possessed. Blackburn's short story revises the compatibilist definition several times. The revised revised definition reads as follows:

Another important thing to draw from the Strawson argument is what is meant by moral responsibility. For Strawson, true moral responsibility means that one is responsible to the degree that it is sensible to either punish one with eternal torment in hell, or reward one with enteral bliss in heaven (314). His definition of moral responsibility is not confined to religious faith in heaven or hell, but rather is used to convey an absolute nature of accountability. This concept of moral responsibility as Strawson presents is pivotal in understanding his objection of moral responsibility. Strawson’s argument is not against a legislative or judicial sense of responsibility, and does not take the form of responsibility that a

Galen Strawson believes that no one is morally responsible for their actions. Strawson states there is an argument which he calls “the basic argument”. It argues that humans can not be truly responsible for their actions. There are three basic ideas he utilizes in his argument. 1)He states that nothing can cause itself.

The vast difference in cultures between the two groups caused friction in their collaboration of developing a project. The scientific group preferred working privately as opposed to team work. They believed in innovation and the promptness in completing a project. They did not value the importance of documenting procedures and new processes. The Information Management group on the other places emphasis on the importance of documenting procedures. They advocated following formal business processes as an attempt to resolve the differences between both the groups (Makarov). These formal business processes were eventually refused by the scientific team as they preferred a more informal method of communicating. This rebellion eventually led one of the scientists, Steve Levitt to conduct his own program on his own Oracle Database within his office. Steve continued his work on his private server. Most of the work that he did was not completely familiar with his fellow colleagues. He was repeatedly solicited by the Research Information Management group to document his computational procedures. He didn’t take any action on these requests. The next issue that developed from this lack of action was that some of the data that was generated from Steve Levitt’s computational work was incorrect. The Research Management team was requested to fix the data validation issue that was caused by Steve Levitt. Without proper

In this paper, I will explicate the views of George Sher and Neil Levy on moral responsibility. These philosophers present different arguments on determining how and whether an individual can be held morally responsible for their actions and omissions. To begin this paper, I will address the view of Sher, following with Levy’s view, and then concluding the paper with a contrast of the two views.

Kurt Gray states, “human minds are always morally accountable for their operation. Guns are bombs are inherently mindless, and so blame slips past them to the person who pulled the trigger.” In other words, Kurt Gray believes that the humans that make certain types of technology should be morally accountable for what they have created. So in a circumstance of a person being shot is the person the blame or is the gun to blame. Kurt Gary also states that “Studies in moral psychology reveal that humans have a deep-seated urge to blame someone or something in the face of suffering.” In making this comment, Kurt Gray urges humans to take responsibility for their actions and not to look for something or someone to blame. For example, if a scientist

I assert that for a moral system to be necessary and applicable, there must exist a moral agent who possesses both the desire and the ability to choose. By denoting certain actions or ways of being as better, a moral system implies that there are also other potential actions and ways of being that are worse. The individual must choose between them. Without this element of choice, an action has no moral qualification. For example, a computer acts, but it does not choose its action. Consequently, while a computer can be judged better or worse in its ability to carry out an action, it cannot be judged responsible for the action. Rather, the person who uses or creates the computer is in fact responsible, for it is that person who chooses for it to act in a particular way. In a moral system, choice, responsibility, and the viability of judgment are linked inextricably.

After reading the case, one continues to come up with new problems and issues along the way that are related to information technologies. The three main problems we encountered in this case are lack of IT knowledge, inappropriate planning, and ineffective and inefficient Resource Management. Each of these issues requires specific attention to fix the next problem and so forth. The solution to attack each individual problem or issue will be explained as follows.

IT Professional is a publication (Keith W. Miller 2009), it is such like book publication, it also has copyright problem, plagiarism problem, and many problems like book publication, so, to be the Professionals, they must act like the book authors to solve these problems. In aspects of IT, the side of ethical problems are including advice on how professionals can recognize, analyze, and make judgments on challenging questions about right, wrong, and computing. Computers have become essential tools of modern humans, regardless life, entertainment, education, work, and business are related with computer. Computer impact on human society very much. So knowing the Information Technology Ethics is very important to everyone, because it is useful to everyone who lives in this

Software engineering has become a part of everyone’s life. People need software for various activities such as paying electricity, mobile bills through an automated systems and so on which make their work easier. Software engineering is a tedious task which involves steps such as planning, gathering requirements, designing and analysis (whether the architecture fits the requirements of the user or not), implementation (turning the design into machine executable code), testing and maintenance activities. Each step needs careful planning and execution because they involve a lot of money, time, and effort. In the same way to make their work easier, the Federal Bureau of Investigation wanted to build an automated system which provides a transition from their daily paper-based work to fulfill their tasks electronically. Therefore, they wanted to build a project called Sentinel. The Sentinel project had setbacks right from the start. When the request for proposal was published, only two companies came forward to take up the project which is really shocking for any organization. “The CIA’s new approach to break-down the entire project into smaller pieces and work on them incrementally did not seem difficult in the beginning, but as the time goes on they faced the real hardships[1]”. The important reasons for the failure of Sentinel Project are lack of proper scoping, no proper planning(repetitive increments in each phase and no proper estimates on time, money and prototyping which