3 ms·
Then "modern cars" can never be considered safe, and whomever the professional engineers are that signed off on that design have some explaining to do. "market
by pdkl95 11y ago
Then "modern cars" can never be considered safe, and whomever the professional engineers are that signed off on that design have some explaining to do. "market forces" or "following my boss's orders" are not valid excuses; a professional engineer has a duty to ignore such things when considering safety.
I suspect whole auto industry needs to re-learn (if they ever learned in the first place) the lesson of the Therac-25 and what "fail safe" means. Some dangerous situations should not be possible.
Unfortunately, I suspect the auto industry will choose to learn those lessons the hard way. When people die from someone messing with their steering or brakes remotely, I hope whomever signed off the idea of mixing remote signalling with critical systems is found personally liable for manslaughter.
- abduhl 11y agoDoes the software industry even have a requirement for professional licensure? If not, then there is no "professional engineer" that signed off on the design and there is no regulatory liability and hence no questions to answer by the engineer. This is one of big problems with the software industry nowadays. It has a role to play in nearly every major industry but does not have the same regulatory hoops to jump through to get into that industry. In this case, I am sure multiple mechanical and electrical licensed professional engineers had to stamp all of the physical components that make up the vehicle but I would be very surprised if any software was ever signed off on by a licensed professional engineer explicitly (there is a case to be made for implied acceptance by the engineer of record for the system that the software runs on but I think it is weak).
- mmagin 11y agoAt least in the US, it is entirely plausible that many of the electrical engineers working in a large company on such a product are not licensed professional engineers.
- maxerickson 11y agoThere are no cars on the road that have brake lines that are tamper proof, so I'm not sure you are setting the bar at the correct level. It will be interesting to watch the ongoing situation with Chrysler: http://www.wired.com/2015/08/chrysler-harman-hit-class-action-complaint-jeep-hack/ http://www.wired.com/2015/08/chrysler-harman-hit-class-actio... If the class action goes forward there will be a legal examination of whether a security flaw that allows remote tampering is a safety defect or not (of course it is, but I mean in the context of liability).
- droopyEyelids 11y agoare you arguing the difference in the ease with which digital information can be altered compared to physical reality is a negligible difference?
- maxerickson 11y agoI'm pointing out that shipping imperfect software has not yet been determined to be negligence. I pretty much expect that automakers will quickly start shipping systems with effective segregation (the cost pretty clearly doesn't outweigh the PR downside), so the interesting question really is whether the cars on the road today represent negligence or not.