Introduction

The Case of the “Killer Robot”

by Richard G. Epstein
West Chester University of PA

The Case of the Killer Robot consists of seven newspaper articles, one journal article and one magazine interview. This scenario is intended to raise issues in computer ethics and in software engineering.

The persons and institutions involved in this scenario are entirely fictitious (except for the references to Carnegie-Mellon and Purdue Universities and to the venerable computer scientists: Ben Shneiderman and Jim Foley). Silicon Valley was chosen as the location for the accident because Silicon Valley is an icon of high technology. All of the persons and institutions named in Silicon Valley are purely fictitious.