"The public has been made aware that programmers can be culprits. This will make it more likely that the next time something goes wrong -- a plane crash, a fire, a flood -- that the public will jump to the conclusion that some programmer caused it. Yes, this is a stretch; but it wasn't so long ago that the concept of programmer implication in disasters was non-existent."

"...it wasn't so long ago..." What?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 -- This has been a thing since at least 1985 and probably far longer.