The Boundaries of Responsibility: Computer Scientists Confront the “Societal Vulnerability” of the Things They Design, 1976–84

As the use of electronic data processing systems became pervasive in the 1970s and early 80s—in business, finance, healthcare, education, and government—public and scientific concern grew about the widespread havoc that could occur if computers broke down. In 1981, twin studies by the US Office of Technology Assessment and the OECD painted a stark picture of “societal vulnerability” to computer failures. Responding to these anxieties, computer scientists released a public statement in 1984 aimed at shoring up confidence in the reliability of computer systems and at solidifying a professional ethos engaged with the wellbeing of the public affected by the things they built. Delineating the domain of this responsibility, however, was fraught. Since the Vietnam War, technologists, engineers, and computer scientists had pushed for institutions like the Association of Computing Machinery to take more explicit and vocal political positions about the uses of the technologies they built and researched—especially to speak out against the use by the US Military or research funded by the Defense Department. Those calls were rejected in the 1984 statement, which took a narrower approach to questions of societal harm and professional responsibility. This paper addresses the history of computer science’s response to the “societal vulnerability discussion” as a social history of a profession grappling with their influence in the world.