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> If anything, punishments in this case should be much more lenient than normal rather than breaking out the cruel and unusual measures. How is it cruel or unu

> If anything, punishments in this case should be much more lenient than normal rather than breaking out the cruel and unusual measures. How is it cruel or unusual to subject someone to risks posed by a system they're building? The Wright brothers didn't hit up bars to find guys willing to drunkenly try and soar into the sky on an oversized kite. The vast majority of things that were ever invented involved huge risks and often injuries to the inventor. Why do people writing code get exemptions from that? I agree with the GP: the hardcoded 1 second wait time sounds exactly like some hack I'd put in a bit of code, the key difference being, my code makes fun little applications on an iPhone work, it does not DRIVE A 3500 POUND VEHICLE IN PUBLIC. I bet if that engineer thought it would be him in front of that things bumper, he would've put in a bit more work to figure out what was going on.

roenxi 7y ago
> How is it cruel or unusual to subject someone to risks posed by a system they're building? More unusual than cruel, I must admit. We just don't do that anywhere. If I were to guess why - if we did, people would either not work on experimental systems or would gold-plate the safety features way beyond what was reasonable. That sounds nice if you don't think about it too hard but in practice it would shave % off how much we produce in goods and services for no reason. Aeroplanes are a great example. It sounds nice to say they are a super-safe form of transport, but actually thinking through the risks people face on their commute to work each day the amount of money we spend doesn't make sense. I mean, what if the risk of being in a plane crash was only as rare as being struck by lightening? And the ticket was much cheaper? That wouldn't be so terrible. I don't know a lot of people who were struck by lightening but I know a lot of people who don't have much money but take overseas holidays anyway. > I bet if that engineer thought it would be him in front of that things bumper, he would've put in a bit more work to figure out what was going on. Probably not in my experience. It is quite hard to get better performance out of a knowledge worker by threatening them. From what I've seen they tend to either resign or just do what they were already doing and hope. It isn't like anyone can stop writing buggy code by trying harder.
- gambiting 7y ago
  >>If I were to guess why - if we did, people would either not work on experimental systems or would gold-plate the safety features way beyond what was reasonable. That sounds nice if you don't think about it too hard but in practice it would shave % off how much we produce in goods and services for no reason. Certified engineers absolutely can and do go to prison for structural mistakes in their projects, especially if those mistakes lead to loss of human life, but sometimes even without it - chief engineer of what was the tallest human-made structure on Earth(radio mast near Warsaw) went to jail for 2 years after the mast collapsed due incorrect design of the support structures. Does it stop people from becoming engineers or from embarking on difficult projects? Of course not. If anything, it shows that maybe programmers working on projects like the autonomous cars should not only be certified the same way engineers are, but also held liable for what they do.
  - bumby 7y ago
    The problem here is that the engineers are likely working under an industrial exemption so there is no professional license liability assumed. I personally have not come across a single software engineer or controls engineer who has had to certify a design.
- FussyZeus 7y ago
  > More unusual than cruel, I must admit. We just don't do that anywhere. Again I disagree, perhaps it would be unusual to do it via some sort of mandate after the fact, but the long history of human innovation involves tons of inventors risking life and/or limb to test safety systems of their own design. I'm reminded of the person who invested that special brake for circular saws that when it detected human flesh in front of the blade, it clamped down so hard it would often destroy the tool. The thing is, it also prevented you from losing a finger. > if we did, people would either not work on experimental systems or would gold-plate the safety features way beyond what was reasonable. I mean, maybe? I just think there's something lost there when you have a software engineer working on the code in a large company that's then testing on the unwitting public. I'm not saying it has to be a standing threat of "we're testing this on you" but, I mean, look what happened. An ugly hack that has no business in a codebase like this went in and someone was seriously injured, and I'm not saying the engineer necessarily deserved to be injured in their stead, but the person surely didn't have any role in this, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. > It isn't like anyone can stop writing buggy code by trying harder. One person, no, but an organization can. Talking of airplanes, when you look into the testing and QA setups for something like Boeing, where the software is literally keeping people in the air alive, its layer after layer of review, review, review, testing, analysis, on and on. Something like "if you think there's a pedestrian ahead, wait one second and check again" would NEVER have made it through a system like that. You know I'm all for innovations but Silicon Valley's VC firms have a nasty tendency to treat everything like it's "just another codebase" forgetting that some of this stuff is doing real important shit. Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos come to mind.

roenxi 7y ago

> How is it cruel or unusual to subject someone to risks posed by a system they're building? More unusual than cruel, I must admit. We just don't do that anywhere. If I were to guess why - if we did, people would either not work on experimental systems or would gold-plate the safety features way beyond what was reasonable. That sounds nice if you don't think about it too hard but in practice it would shave % off how much we produce in goods and services for no reason. Aeroplanes are a great example. It sounds nice to say they are a super-safe form of transport, but actually thinking through the risks people face on their commute to work each day the amount of money we spend doesn't make sense. I mean, what if the risk of being in a plane crash was only as rare as being struck by lightening? And the ticket was much cheaper? That wouldn't be so terrible. I don't know a lot of people who were struck by lightening but I know a lot of people who don't have much money but take overseas holidays anyway. > I bet if that engineer thought it would be him in front of that things bumper, he would've put in a bit more work to figure out what was going on. Probably not in my experience. It is quite hard to get better performance out of a knowledge worker by threatening them. From what I've seen they tend to either resign or just do what they were already doing and hope. It isn't like anyone can stop writing buggy code by trying harder.

gambiting 7y ago
>>If I were to guess why - if we did, people would either not work on experimental systems or would gold-plate the safety features way beyond what was reasonable. That sounds nice if you don't think about it too hard but in practice it would shave % off how much we produce in goods and services for no reason. Certified engineers absolutely can and do go to prison for structural mistakes in their projects, especially if those mistakes lead to loss of human life, but sometimes even without it - chief engineer of what was the tallest human-made structure on Earth(radio mast near Warsaw) went to jail for 2 years after the mast collapsed due incorrect design of the support structures. Does it stop people from becoming engineers or from embarking on difficult projects? Of course not. If anything, it shows that maybe programmers working on projects like the autonomous cars should not only be certified the same way engineers are, but also held liable for what they do.
- bumby 7y ago
  The problem here is that the engineers are likely working under an industrial exemption so there is no professional license liability assumed. I personally have not come across a single software engineer or controls engineer who has had to certify a design.
FussyZeus 7y ago
> More unusual than cruel, I must admit. We just don't do that anywhere. Again I disagree, perhaps it would be unusual to do it via some sort of mandate after the fact, but the long history of human innovation involves tons of inventors risking life and/or limb to test safety systems of their own design. I'm reminded of the person who invested that special brake for circular saws that when it detected human flesh in front of the blade, it clamped down so hard it would often destroy the tool. The thing is, it also prevented you from losing a finger. > if we did, people would either not work on experimental systems or would gold-plate the safety features way beyond what was reasonable. I mean, maybe? I just think there's something lost there when you have a software engineer working on the code in a large company that's then testing on the unwitting public. I'm not saying it has to be a standing threat of "we're testing this on you" but, I mean, look what happened. An ugly hack that has no business in a codebase like this went in and someone was seriously injured, and I'm not saying the engineer necessarily deserved to be injured in their stead, but the person surely didn't have any role in this, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. > It isn't like anyone can stop writing buggy code by trying harder. One person, no, but an organization can. Talking of airplanes, when you look into the testing and QA setups for something like Boeing, where the software is literally keeping people in the air alive, its layer after layer of review, review, review, testing, analysis, on and on. Something like "if you think there's a pedestrian ahead, wait one second and check again" would NEVER have made it through a system like that. You know I'm all for innovations but Silicon Valley's VC firms have a nasty tendency to treat everything like it's "just another codebase" forgetting that some of this stuff is doing real important shit. Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos come to mind.