Review:
This video was originally done by the Boston chapter of Computer Professionals
for Social Responsibility (CPSR).
It is the record of a debate held on the MIT campus.
The video starts with a short introduction by Michael Dertouzos, who gives the
basic scenario of the strategic defense initiative (SDI).
He also mentions that it envisions use of a ``consistent, distributed database.''
The first panelist is David Parnas.
Parnas argues that SDI would actually put the United States in a weaker position,
and that ``it is absolutely impossible for us to know it would work when needed.''
The second panelist is Joseph Weizenbaum, author of the book Computer Power and
Human Reason.
Weizenbaum makes various points against SDI,
including the ``impossibility argument'' that it is impossible to write software
for a system whose specifications cannot be known in advance.
The third panelist is Charles Seitz, inventor of the ``Cosmic Cube'' parallel computer.
Seitz argues that the question of the feasibility of the SDI system is highly sensitive
to the system architecture that is chosen.
He gives a conceptual outline of a hierarchical architecture for SDI.
The fourth panelist is Danny Cohen.
Part of Cohen's remarks are a rebuttal to points made by Parnas in papers prior to the panel.
Cohen also suggests that ``maybe we can make size [of the SDI software] be an asset rather than
a liability.''
Each of the panelists then responds to the remarks made so far, and then the audience is
allowed to ask questions.
Even though this video is old, the issues surrounding the feasibility of constructing large, real-time safety-critical software systems are timeless. Computer Science and Engineering students should certainly be educated to have a basic familiarity with these issues. This video should be useful in either a stand-alone ethics and computing course, or as part of a module in a software engineering course. The panelists make a number of technical points about design methods, the feasibility of testing software and modeling software reliability. Various analogies are discussed for comparing software for SDI with that for other systems. It is probably useful to pause the video after each speaker's remarks to allow questions and comments. The content of the video will probably best be appreciated if some background reading is done first. Parnas' arguments against the feasibility of SDI software are summarized in ``Software Aspects of Strategic Defense Systems,'' Communications of the ACM, 28, 12, December 1985, pp. 1326-1335. The more recent state of ballistic missile defense is covered in the September 1997 issue of IEEE Spectrum magazine.
Video Format/Length:
This complete video is approximately 2 hours in length.
The last portion of the video contains questions and answers from the audience,
and is not essential.
Ordering Information:
This video was originally distributed by the Computing Professionals for Social Responsibility.