Accountability & Accountability & Computer & Information Computer & Information

TechnologyTechnology

Accountability & Accountability & Computer & Information Computer & Information

TechnologyTechnology

Computer SeminarComputer SeminarJoseph Bryant ManzanoJoseph Bryant Manzano

Important TermsAccountable .- 1.- “Person (which could be a collective unit such as a government, agency or legal person such as a corporation) is the appropriate agent to respond for an event or incident or Situation.”2.- “Required to render account: answerable”

Responsible .- “Being a source or a cause”

Four types (definitions) of Responsibility

Role Responsibility

Equal to Duty. It refers to what individuals are expected to do according to their social roles

Casual Responsibility

An individual is responsible for an untoward [not favorable] event. The individual was the cause of the event. Not only applicable to human being but to animals and nature forces

Liable

The individual has the legal obligation to pay or compensate when certain events occur. Usually this is applied with an evaluation of the other 3 responsibility definitions

Strict Liability.- Without fault. Encourage individual to take extra precautions and make thing safer.

Software: Buying and Selling

Responsibility in software: Manufactures, Stores andSalespeople.

Categorical Imperative:Deontological View of Immanuel Kant

Never Use another human being as merely means to an end

To be Honest with customers:Give important information about the software,

answer any questions truthfully and to the best of the salespeople knowledge

make useful and truthfully comparison if different products are sold

Completely Passive Aggressively Active

Do not Coerce Customer into buying software:

In between a line is drawn betweenunfair and fair business practices

Contractual Relationship

Contract between the seller and the buyerone provides the products and services and the other

will provide something in return (money or other productsand services).

If the contract is breach then either party can sue to the other one. i.e. If the software fail to function or perform an activity specified in the contract.

Example: A Part of the Real Player License Agreement

a) You may: (i) use the Software on any single computer; (ii) use the Software on a second computer so long as the first and second computers are not used simultaneously; and (iii) copy the Software for back-up and archival purposes, provided any copy must contain all of the original Software's proprietary notices.

8. WARRANTIES AND LIABILITIES.(a) For the Plus versions of RN Products, the following terms apply: LIMITED WARRANTY. RN warrants that for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of acquisition the Software, if operated as directed, will substantially achieve the functionality described in the Documentation. RN does not warrant however that your use of the Software will be uninterrupted or that the operation of the Software will be error-free or secure. RN also warrants that the media containing the Software, if provided by RN, is free from defects in material and workmanship and will so remain for ninety (90) days from the date you acquire the Software.

This example is a “contract” of use between an individual and the vendor. If this contract is breach then the individual or the company will have the legal right to sue

Nowadays, contracts are more specific. Companies now hired computerConsultants and lawyers to prepare contracts.

Disputes in court of law are solved by appealing to a complex body of case law that has been compiled from several disputes that have arisen in buying and selling things (not only software).

TortsAny Wrongful act other than breach ofcontract for which a civil action may be

brought

Product

Strict Liability Negligence

Service

Software

(Software) ? Product : Service;

Intangibility ! an issue. Example: Energy and Leases.

Point of View: The “Prince” perspective or “suit” perspective.

(suit == off the rack) It will consider a product

(suit == Customized) It will consider a service

(suit == off the rack && suit == Customized) It will consider a mixed

Therefore, the mass marketed software will be a product, customized software is considered a service and if the softwarewas bought and then tailored, it will a combination of a productand a service.

Software as a Product

Strict Liability => Software producers can be held responsible(sued) for any errors and malfunctions in the software, even when it is not possible for them to know that those errors or malfunctions can be produced by the software.

Factors that justify Strict Liabilityunder Unified Commercial Code

The product has been placed in the mainstreammarket

The producer is in the best position for anticipate and control the risks in the product

The producer can pay for the injuries from the useof the product since he/she can included these

“costs” in the overall price of the product

Software as service

Negligence => It is assumed that the individual who engagein certain activities owe a duty of care; negligence is a failureto fulfill that duty.

Difficult concept to identify in computer technology for the following reasons:

Standards and rules in the Computing and IT are changing constantly. Therefore, being negligent is a matter to deciding how old an standard has to be for it to be considered obsolete.

A balance between other factors (cost, appeal, functionality, etc) and reliability. In this case, producer (software engineer) is not being negligent

The Myth of Amoral Computer Programming

and Information Processing: The Y2K

problemConcept coined by De George(97 – 98). Computers don’t make mistakes, human beings do when designing them,entering data or writing programs.

Who to blame for the Y2K problem?

Everyone involved in the production, distribution and use of computer technology should be aware that they have role-responsibilities. Therefore they must be aware that they are liable for their products and services

De George’s Best Strategy for Minimizing the risk-ness and unreliability of Computing

All role responsibilities are well articulated among everyone involved

All individuals involved have to understand the effects of their work on other human being

All involved individual are to be liable (by law) when they fail to fulfill their role responsibilities

Diffusion of Accountability

Moral responsibility is more difficult to decide than Legal responsibility. Diffusion appears most in moral responsibility.

Factors that contributed to diffusion of responsibility:

a) The scale and complexity of the computer systems

b) The “many” hands involved in developing, distributing and using them

c) The way in which computer systems sometimes mediate human decision making

Moral Responsibility

Human beings have the ability to act “in accordance to the law”. We have autonomy; we think and decide and then act.

How individual moral responsibilities should be placed?

Strict Liability Utilitarian view Legal Responsibility

NOT USEFUL IN DECIDING MORAL RESPONSIBILITY

Examples: Therac-25 which moral responsibility cannot be assigned so easily as the legal one (the company was liable).

Designer and users

Groups that can be held morally responsible

Computer System and models involved in decision making: How much blame (responsibility) has to be assigned if the user decides to not follow the computer model or if he/she follows the computer model and it produces an untoward result?

The users can be declared morally responsible for untoward outcomes, even though there is no other way that they could change the outcome with their current knowledge?

Example: The Aegis Combat System and the Iranian airliner

Van den Hoven Model of Moral Responsibility

To act as a moral agent, in environments where information is extremely important, an individual must be able to form justified beliefs and make moral judgments.

This means that all the people that mediate with computer information and that have to make decisions on the base of it have to be well informed on the system that they are using. This will permit them to make better decision about the data that has been collected. If the individual doesn’t have enough information of the system then he/she will not be able to act as a moral agent

Internet Issues

A new layer of complexity: Anonymity

It is difficult to trace individuals and their actions. This weaken the sense of responsibility for actions

Special Areas of Interest

ISP Liability Accountability in Virtual Environments

Internet Service Provider Liability

Can the ISP be held liable for information that appears in their forum, chats, bulletin boards, etc?

Info that is distributed in these places can move very quickly and reach several hundred or thousand people very fast.

This info has the ability to be destructive to a person or a company. If a people has been affected by the info appearing in the bulletin board then who is to blame?

The 2 points of View

ISP as a newspaper. The ISP has the responsibility to monitor and censor the information on their forums. They have the same responsibilities as a newspaper does. All the content should be reviewed and if information can cause a great deal of harm then it has to be researched before publishing it. The ISP will be legally liable for any information on their forums

ISP as a telephone. The ISP will be considered as a carrier of information and cannot be liable for any information that goes through its forums.

Both views are being discussed on several countries but in the United States they have come out with a law.

Communication Decency Act.- Eventually struck down by the US supreme court. However Section 230 is valid

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider” The Good Samaritan

Filtering and censoring forum are encouraged by courts and customers

Virtual ActionVirtual Environments as a game.- The individual can be held responsible for actions that break the game rules or exposeother gamers to violence or other not moral activities.

Virtual Environments as a simulation.- The individual should be still be held accountable for actions taking in the virtual world. Moreover, these actions can still have some effects on the real world (a flight simulator that is being monitored for students performance)

Example of Virtual actions: Cyber rape and the Aegis System

Question to nib on

Computer System and models involved in decision making: How much blame (responsibility) has to be assigned if the user decides to not follow the computer model or if he/she follows the computer model and it produces an untoward result?

The users can be declared morally responsible for untoward outcomes, even though there is no other way that they could change the outcome with their current knowledge?

Can the ISP be held liable for information that appears in their forum, chats, bulletin boards, etc?

Explain why GTA (Grand Theft Auto Videogame) is so popular and if it is morally acceptable?