Discussion Questions

The Case of the Killer Robot

This discussion is to consider the fictional " Case of the Killer Robot." Read the description of the case, and then assess what responsibility the following persons bear for the death of Art Matthew.

• Randy Samuels, programmer. He wrote the program code that caused the Robbie CX30 robot to oscillate wildly, killing the robot operator, Art Matthew.
• Cindy Yardley, Silicon Techtronics employee and software tester. She admitted to faking software tests in order to save the jobs of her co-workers.
• Sam Reynolds, CX30 Project Manager. Ray Johnson was his immediate boss. His background was in data processing, but he was put in charge of the Robbie CX30 project, much to Ray Johnson's chagrin. He was committed to the waterfall model of software development.
• Ray Johnson, Robotics Division Chief at Silicon Techtronics. The Robotics Division needed a successful robot. Johnson pressured his subordinates to complete the project on time.
• Michael Waterson, President and CEO of Silicon Techtronics. Placed Sam Reynolds in charge of Robbie CX30 project as a cost-saving measure, rather than hiring an expert from outside.

Since the description is lengthy, you may want to do text searches for mentions of the principals in order to reach a conclusion more quickly. For this purpose, it may be helpful to refer to the low-tech text file containing all the articles.

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