Case: Computer Programmer vs.
Engineer vs. Technician

A computer programmer is asked to write a program that will raise and lower a large and heavy X-ray device. He writes his program and tests it. It successfully and accurately moves the device between the top of the support post and the top of the examination table. The program is then installed. Later, after an X-ray technician has used the device for a series of X-rays of a patient, she tells the patient to get off the table. The technician then sets the height of the device to the “table-top” position. The patient, however, has not heard the directions of the technician and remains on the table. The patient is crushed to death under the weight of the machine.

1. Whose responsibility is it that the patient has been killed? The programmer? The technician?  How far should the programmer have gone in guarding against worst case scenarios? 
2. Is there an engineer somewhere in this case who bears responsibility for what has happened?
3. Should this problem have been anticipated by someone? By whom?
4. Is this situation really the fault of the patient? Is this another case of abdication of personal responsibility?
5. Suppose the patient were an engineer or a computer programmer. Would the patient have a responsibility to look into the operation of this machine or its computer code?

(adapted from Donald Gotterbarn, “Computer Ethics: Responsibility
Regained,” Phi Kappa Phi Journal, Summer 1990)

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