Ethics Analysis - A Case Study Exercise
I have been using the following case study discussion for several years as an effective example to introduce students to ethical issues in technology. Unfortunately, I do not have a record of its origin. If I locate the source, I will be sure to add the reference.
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Case Study
Your company has designed a new scientific calculator integrated circuit? featuring high-precision floating-point accuracy to 18-significant digits for all 250 math functions provided. After spending 1.5 years in development and shipping 500 beta-test units, the company discovers a problem with certain calculations. The company has already manufactured 5000 units ready for sale.
To expedite the math operations, certain lookup tables of values are used to help in the execution speed from seconds to micro-seconds. These tables contain 100’s of integer entries. During beta testing, you discover that several values were incorrectly entered before burning them into firmware on the IC’s.
Further testing concludes that because of the location of the table errors, the results only affect the accuracy of the 15th to 18th significant digits. Because of sunk costs on the project, your management wants to release the chips.
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Reflect on the Case before going through the Discussions
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Discussion
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Step 1 - Gather information
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Step 2 - Identify stakeholders
users of the calculator
-in certain situations, the user can make an incorrect calculation
public
-the users may perform calculations that could impact safety of the public
-this is a real possibility given the likely users
company and employees
-there are negative ramifications of releasing a faulty product
-loss of good name of the company and its products
-legal liability for providing a faulty product if someone is harmed
- may result in monetary harm to you, the employees and the owners of this company
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Step 3 - Identify relevant ethical values
-values from the IEEE code are:
1. release of the faulty calculator has the potential to ?endanger the safety of the public
3. need to be honest in stating claims as to the ?precision of the calculator
9. there is clear potential to injure the reputation of the company and its employees
-in terms of legal issues, the company would be opening itself to claims of negligence
- particularly since the defect was identified prior to release of the product
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Step 4 - Determine a course of action
-three possible courses:
1- release the product as is without notifying customers
-not a good choice due to the potential harm
-would not pass the newspaper test
-may be illegal with respect to false advertising
1- use the chips in a different calculator that is only guaranteed to compute to a lower precision
-requires testing for compatibility and for proper operation
3-throw the chips away, correct the chip design, and retest again to verify proper operation
-take a business loss
-safest solution, but with a cost
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Avoidance
-the ethical dilemma could have been avoided
-the project team should have developed a proper test plan
-the plan would have called for various levels of testing throughout the project
-implementation of the test plan would have likely picked up the problem
-at the system level design if the data for the tables were in error
-at the detail design level when testing out the logical functions of the chips ready for sale.