The FAA flagged the wiring issue as potentially “catastrophic.” It is possible other protections like shielding, insulation and circuit breakers could prevent the short circuit, a company official said.
This may not be a huge issue for the MAX, but I certainly hope that the engineering department had nothing to do with the statement that I highlighted because that is strictly an amateur's approach to electrical safety. Among many other things, despite popular belief a circuit breaker does not prevent fires from shorts, and this is especially true for partial shorts due to wiring insulation failure. Perhaps the MAX has arc fault detection but I doubt it (current technology is very prone to false activation and in an aircraft that can be fatal more quickly than in other applications.)