Computers and Trust

Nancy Leveson
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Thursday, TBD, Volen 101, 2:10-3:10 pm. (Refreshments at 2:00pm)

"We seem not to trust one another as much as would be desirable. In lieu of trusting each other, are we putting too much trust in our technology?" -- T.B. Sheridan.

Computers are being introduced into the control of virtually every dangerous system, including nuclear weapons, transportation systems (aircraft, automobiles, trains), medical devices, and chemical and nuclear power plants. Few engineering techniques exist to provide assurance that safety is not being degraded by the substitution of digital systems for the electromechanical designs that have been perfected through decades and sometimes centuries of experience. At the same time, nothing is absolutely safe, and computers provide important advantages over the human operators, social systems, and engineered devices that they are replacing.

This talk will attempt to examine whether concern is justified. Are we putting too much trust in computers? Will introducing computers to assist or replace human operators eliminate or reduce the problem of human error? Are there limits to the reasonable uses of computer technology? If so, what do we need to do to stretch those limits?

Bio: Nancy Leveson is Professor of Aerospace Software Engineering in the Aeronautics and Astronautics Dept. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Previously she was Boeing Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. She has served as Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering and on the Board of Directors of the International Council on Systems Engineering. She received the ACM 1999 Allen Newell Award for "establishing the foundations of software safety" and the 1995 AIAA Information Systems Award for "developing the field of software safety and for promoting responsible software and system engineering practices where life and property are at stake." Professor Leveson was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).

Host: Liuba Shrira