CS 492/692 - Spring 2019 - Assignment 4

What Should [Facebook|Boeing] Do Now?

Description

This report should be roughly 2500 words and is worth 15 marks.

In this assignment, you will select a one of Facebook and Boeing, as examples of two high tech companies that are facing legal difficulties and difficulties with the public over actions in the past few years that have led to social or physical disasters.

In each case, it has become apparent that some aspects of corporate directives and employee behavior have contributed to the causes of the disasters.

These stories are far from over and are evolving as we speak.

Your essay is to

  1. review briefly the history leading up to the disasters and beyond. To keep this review brief, you should cite references, giving their URLs, to sources that give the complete details.
  2. describe the aspects of corporate directives and employee behavior have contributed to the causes of the disasters
  3. propose courses of actions to correct the disasters, to prevent them from ever happening in the future, or both.

Be sure that your report includes a proper introduction and conclusion, as well as a list of references. Be sure that any claims you make, apart from creative ideas, are backed by evidence.

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to draw together some of the various subtopics that were investigated in the course, e.g. ethics, liability, AI, etc., in the context of a more targeted study. Also, it is to give you an opportunity to try to solve a problem for which full information is not yet available, based on similar events for which we know more.