Comment Re:Who's liable? (Score 1) 95
Um... ok...
Software wills itself into existance because there is no single corporate entity which claims authorship / ownership? Ummm... I don't think so... I think that the OpenSource programmers who write the code will it into existance...
However, let's say you have a program which, through methodologies of evolutionary computing, is actually self-controlling in a reasonable sense of the phrase... (Though, as humans wrote
the EC code, not self-creating...)
How does a computer program accept responsibility?
What punitive measures would a computer program be subjected to in the case of failure?
How does a human or business entity or goverment extract compensatory damages from a piece of software?
If a patient dies due to the failure of a machine, the hostpital faces some kind of punishment, and if there is nobody to pass it on to, they are not interested in using that machine.
The authors of the program could be sued, but they probably don't have enough money, or any binding contractual liability as to the performance of the program, to be worth suing...
However, OpenSource medical software could be put into use through a RedHat-like software company which would verify the software, accept liability if it failed, provide tech support, etc. They'd, obviously, charge for this... but so does RedHat...
Software wills itself into existance because there is no single corporate entity which claims authorship / ownership? Ummm... I don't think so... I think that the OpenSource programmers who write the code will it into existance...
However, let's say you have a program which, through methodologies of evolutionary computing, is actually self-controlling in a reasonable sense of the phrase... (Though, as humans wrote
the EC code, not self-creating...)
How does a computer program accept responsibility?
What punitive measures would a computer program be subjected to in the case of failure?
How does a human or business entity or goverment extract compensatory damages from a piece of software?
If a patient dies due to the failure of a machine, the hostpital faces some kind of punishment, and if there is nobody to pass it on to, they are not interested in using that machine.
The authors of the program could be sued, but they probably don't have enough money, or any binding contractual liability as to the performance of the program, to be worth suing...
However, OpenSource medical software could be put into use through a RedHat-like software company which would verify the software, accept liability if it failed, provide tech support, etc. They'd, obviously, charge for this... but so does RedHat...
