[SystemSafety] 1. View of Computer Reliability in the Law (English and US) and 2. Argumentation

[Peter Bernard Ladkin]

Susan Landau has published an article in the Lawfare blog about attitudes of English and US courts 
towards the evidence generated by, or about the behaviour of, computers in cases they consider.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/dangers-posed-evidentiary-software—and-what-do-about-it

She refers to Paul Marshall's masterful account to the University of Law of the PO Horizon affair 
https://www.postofficetrial.com/2021/06/marshall-spells-it-out-speech-to.html

Susan also singles out Paul's observation that ".... writing on a bit of paper in evidence is only 
marks on a piece of paper until first, someone explains what it means and, second, if it is a 
statement of fact, someone proves the truth of that fact."  This applies strongly also to arguments 
presented in assurance cases for safety-critical systems.

Rather than say more here, I refer to my blog post 
https://abnormaldistribution.org/index.php/2021/06/27/computer-reliability-in-legal-arguments-with-some-observations-about-arguments/ 


PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Bielefeld, Germany
ClaireTheWhiteRabbit RIP
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs-bi.de





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