SECTION 4.6.

1 (SCENARIO 1, 2 AND 3)

.6.1 Scenanos

Scenario 1: Designing-making Systems

David works for an investment company. His job is to pick investments for a pension fund. To help him make decisions,
he uses an expert system. Each upgrade of the system gives more complex analysis. David is very nervous about the
market this week. His personal indicators point to the market going down, while the expert system points to it going up.
The system recommends that he puts substantial investments into the market but he does not understand the system's
analysis. He also can not judge if the system is defective. What do you think David should do? Should he go with his own
analysis and feeling or go with the expert system? Note that if he makes the wrong choice, he "Il lose a lot of money for
his company.

Also consider the following questions:

• Can David be held responsible if he uses the information of the "(Warn and that turns out to be the wrong decision?

• Can the system's designer or owner be sued or held responsible if the system is working properly? What about if the
system is found to be faulty, should designer pay back if the money lost by the investment company?

• Can David be held responsible if he uses the information of the program and that turns out to be the wrong decision?

Ans:

David should go with his own analysis and go with the expert system because that is the right thing to do. At least he
follows his own analysis. He will not regret at the end.

 Can the system's designer or owner be used or held responsible if the system is working properly? What about if
the system is found to be faulty, should the designer pay back the money lost by the investment company?

Ans:

Yes, the system's designer or owner is the responsible if the system is working properly and that's good. But if the
system found to be faulty, then the designer must pay back the money lost.

Scenario 2: Service Provider for Online Forums

Milo is a freelance journalist and specialises in Southern African politics. She uses the Internet to keep up to date and
uses her computer to write articles, news, as well as taking part in online chat rooms and forums. She has been away
and on her return she e is outraged to find postings on a forum attacking her. In these postings, it was claimed that she is
a drug dealer and that her stories are filled with lies. In response, she posts a denial and also contacts the forum
administrator for names and address of the defamer (All posters are required to register with their real names and
address for billing purposes). However, the forum administrator refuses to give her this information. Milo is now suing
them because she can not sue the perpetrator.

• Do you think the forum administrator should be responsible for what is said in the forum?

• Can the company providing the software be held responsible?

• If neither, then who should be? If both, in what proportion?

Do you think the forum administrator should be responsible for what is said in the forum?

Ans:

Yes, Forum Administrator must review first the news and articles they receive before to publish it. They must confirm it
first if those news and articles are legit. It's their job. And second, why would they not give the information to Milo. It is
Milo's right to know those information because of what it did to her is below the belt. If those posters is not true then
the defamer must be filed a case. Ifs destroying her image. Forum Administrator must be fired he's not doing his job
right.

 Can the company providing the software be held responsible?

Ans:

No, they will not held the responsible because it is not their fault for what is said in the forum. The company provided
the software is for good purposes only. And the company didn’t expect that forums like that will going to happen,

 If neither, then who should be? If both, in what proportion?

Ans:

It should be the Defamer and the Forum Administrator. Why? The Perpetrator will find out easily if the Forum
Administrator is not protecting the perpetrator. I think the Forum Administrator and the Perpetrator are together. They
must be filed with case and go to jail. What they did is under Republic Act.
Scenario 3: Y2K Problem

The infamous Y2K problem was a result of saving precious memory space by maintaining The information to two digits
(e.g., 1975 is stored as 75). As the year 2000 approached, calendar dependent activities were at risk. Some software
clearly would be affected, but to others, the code was quite impenetrable and no-one knew if it did anything with dates.
The public reacted to this with disbelief and outrage. Were the professionals asleep? Was it a ploy for companies to
employ more professionals and charge their customers to fix this issue? Should the manufacturers and designers have
had more foresight? Why was more not done earlier to address the issue? Who should pay for the costs to check and fix
the software? The year 2000 arrived with no major catastrophe and, in fact, there were only a few isolated problems.
Various opinions have been expressed on this issue. Some saying that the problems were fixed on time; while others
saying that the problem was overstated.

• Can the person who came up with that original idea of truncating the year to just two digits instead of four be held
responsible?

• Should all the software engineers who coded the year into two digits be held responsible (if it can be identified who
wrote those particular lines of code)?

• Could the coders blame their managers, who were promising clients fancy features such that they were compelled to
truncate the year in order to meet the design specs?

• Who else may be responsible?

• Is this even a case of blame and maybe it was reasonable to assume that code written in, say, 1980 would not still be in
production by 2000? That is, it is. at most, a mistake in judgement, but surely not a bug?

Can the person who came up with that original idea of truncating the year to just two digits instead of four be held
responsible?

Ans:

Yes, the person who came up with that original idea of truncating the year to just two digits instead of four can be held
the responsible but not all responsibilities. Because this person didn't know that the public will not going like this idea.
This person is just making the life easier.

• Should all the software engineers who coded the year into two digits be held responsible (if it can be identified who
wrote those particular lines of code?)

Ans:

No, all the software engineers who coded the year into two digits will not held responsible. Because they are just
encoding the orders from their managers. They are just doing their job. Could the coders blame their managers, who
were promising clients fancy features such that they were compelled to truncate the year in order to meet the design
specs?

Ans:

Yes the coders can blame their managers. At the first place, Managers should not make promise to clients if they cannot
stand it. Who else may be responsible?

Ans: The companies and the professional