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Ask HN: Would you sign a developer Hippocratic Oath?

11 points by secfirstmd 10y ago

secfirstmd 10y ago
E.g Would agree to never contribute code to a product that you knew would likely be used by a human rights abusing country to repress it's population...
- Fej 10y ago
  How about - don't write code that will directly be sold to an oppressive regime?
  - partisan 10y ago
    What if a regime is using a FOSS application you wrote to do that? Should there be clauses in software licenses to indicate that the software provided cannot be used in a manner that causes harm to others? Further still, how would you enforce that?
bluejekyll 10y ago
I don't think it's necessarily this easy. While I would say "yes" to the question, I already know that if I write a piece of crypto software, it will be used by bad players to hide their illicit activities, including governments hiding what they are doing to their population. Similarly, almost all open-source software can be used by these bad actors. I doubt any of them write their router OSes, e.g. FreeBSD, but should I not contribute to that code because I know they are using it to suppress or track voices inside their country? Similar arguments for DNS or other tools that can be used to snoop on citizens. Now, I would sign something saying I would not take a contract or money from them, but at the same time I think the US/EU sanctions actually already require that. So how would we design it with these obvious caveats?
blackflame7000 10y ago
Computer Science differs from the Medical field in that you never know what someone else might do with your work. In medicine at any given moment you know whether or not you are acting in the patients best interest. Doctors still make mistakes of course, but they still know their intent. Now lets say I write a program to encrypt messages between two parties because their government is censoring free speech. Here my intentions are good. However, someone else could use that system to organize terrorist activities. It was never my intent but still it is my work being used to aid criminals. That's where the line gets blurry. In medicine, actions have immediate effect. They either help or hurt the patient. In computer science the same program can be both a blessing and a curse.
- corobo 10y ago
  In medicine you may be treating someone who may later go on to commit war crimes, it doesn't mean you're causing harm by proxy. The oath just says "help this person" it doesn't say "help this person if"
  - nostrademons 10y ago
    The irony is that public condemnation usually goes the opposite way for software developers. For a doctor, their client is the patient, and they are bound by oath to help that patient. If the patient goes on to do horrible crimes, that's on the patient, not on the doctor. For a software engineer, the client is either their customer or the employer, and the equivalent oath would be to always act in their customer/employer's best interest. Most developers already do this - they typically don't continue to get paid if they don't. But the moral dilemmas that surround software are often of the form "You write software that massively violates peoples' privacy, gets people to click on ads, wastes peoples' time, etc." If an NSA developer did an IAmA and said "Yes, I write code to spy on people because I have a responsibility to the people that pay my salary", they'd be vilified, and more than a few people would likely say "No, you have a responsibility to the American people to stop doing what you're doing." If a doctor were to say "I refuse to treat this NSA engineer because he is harming humanity", he would be similarly vilified.
- Terribledactyl 10y ago
  I would say it's even blurrier than that. Some developers are making right next to the users, UI/Frontend stuff, other developers are back in the stack, or even further back building the tools other developers use. Who's the oath protecting there?
ysleepy 10y ago
Like the Iron Ring in canada? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring
x1798DE 10y ago
I don't think I'd even sign a medical hippocratic oath if I were a doctor. I consider oaths of that sort to be cheap talk nonsense. I would not, however, be willing to work on anything that I thought was directly harmful, e.g. I would never work for the NSA.
jotux 10y ago
IEEE members agree to the Code of Ethics, which are pretty universal: >We, the members of the IEEE, in recognition of the importance of our technologies in affecting the quality of life throughout the world, and in accepting a personal obligation to our profession, its members and the communities we serve, do hereby commit ourselves to the highest ethical and professional conduct and agree: >1. to accept responsibility in making decisions consistent with the safety, health, and welfare of the public, and to disclose promptly factors that might endanger the public or the environment; >2. to avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest whenever possible, and to disclose them to affected parties when they do exist; >3. to be honest and realistic in stating claims or estimates based on available data; >4. to reject bribery in all its forms; >5. to improve the understanding of technology; its appropriate application, and potential consequences; >6. to maintain and improve our technical competence and to undertake technological tasks for others only if qualified by training or experience, or after full disclosure of pertinent limitations; >7. to seek, accept, and offer honest criticism of technical work, to acknowledge and correct errors, and to credit properly the contributions of others; >8. to treat fairly all persons and to not engage in acts of discrimination based on race, religion, gender, disability, age, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression; >9. to avoid injuring others, their property, reputation, or employment by false or malicious action; >10. to assist colleagues and co-workers in their professional development and to support them in following this code of ethics.
sheraz 10y ago
No. I simply don't work on projects that are part of public safety (traffic lights) or medical devices. Or things of that ilk.

11 points by secfirstmd 10y ago

E.g Would agree to never contribute code to a product that you knew would likely be used by a human rights abusing country to repress it's population...

Fej 10y ago
How about - don't write code that will directly be sold to an oppressive regime?
- partisan 10y ago
  What if a regime is using a FOSS application you wrote to do that? Should there be clauses in software licenses to indicate that the software provided cannot be used in a manner that causes harm to others? Further still, how would you enforce that?

bluejekyll 10y ago

I don't think it's necessarily this easy. While I would say "yes" to the question, I already know that if I write a piece of crypto software, it will be used by bad players to hide their illicit activities, including governments hiding what they are doing to their population. Similarly, almost all open-source software can be used by these bad actors. I doubt any of them write their router OSes, e.g. FreeBSD, but should I not contribute to that code because I know they are using it to suppress or track voices inside their country? Similar arguments for DNS or other tools that can be used to snoop on citizens. Now, I would sign something saying I would not take a contract or money from them, but at the same time I think the US/EU sanctions actually already require that. So how would we design it with these obvious caveats?

blackflame7000 10y ago

Computer Science differs from the Medical field in that you never know what someone else might do with your work. In medicine at any given moment you know whether or not you are acting in the patients best interest. Doctors still make mistakes of course, but they still know their intent. Now lets say I write a program to encrypt messages between two parties because their government is censoring free speech. Here my intentions are good. However, someone else could use that system to organize terrorist activities. It was never my intent but still it is my work being used to aid criminals. That's where the line gets blurry. In medicine, actions have immediate effect. They either help or hurt the patient. In computer science the same program can be both a blessing and a curse.

corobo 10y ago
In medicine you may be treating someone who may later go on to commit war crimes, it doesn't mean you're causing harm by proxy. The oath just says "help this person" it doesn't say "help this person if"
- nostrademons 10y ago
  The irony is that public condemnation usually goes the opposite way for software developers. For a doctor, their client is the patient, and they are bound by oath to help that patient. If the patient goes on to do horrible crimes, that's on the patient, not on the doctor. For a software engineer, the client is either their customer or the employer, and the equivalent oath would be to always act in their customer/employer's best interest. Most developers already do this - they typically don't continue to get paid if they don't. But the moral dilemmas that surround software are often of the form "You write software that massively violates peoples' privacy, gets people to click on ads, wastes peoples' time, etc." If an NSA developer did an IAmA and said "Yes, I write code to spy on people because I have a responsibility to the people that pay my salary", they'd be vilified, and more than a few people would likely say "No, you have a responsibility to the American people to stop doing what you're doing." If a doctor were to say "I refuse to treat this NSA engineer because he is harming humanity", he would be similarly vilified.
Terribledactyl 10y ago
I would say it's even blurrier than that. Some developers are making right next to the users, UI/Frontend stuff, other developers are back in the stack, or even further back building the tools other developers use. Who's the oath protecting there?

ysleepy 10y ago

Like the Iron Ring in canada? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring

x1798DE 10y ago

I don't think I'd even sign a medical hippocratic oath if I were a doctor. I consider oaths of that sort to be cheap talk nonsense. I would not, however, be willing to work on anything that I thought was directly harmful, e.g. I would never work for the NSA.

jotux 10y ago

IEEE members agree to the Code of Ethics, which are pretty universal: >We, the members of the IEEE, in recognition of the importance of our technologies in affecting the quality of life throughout the world, and in accepting a personal obligation to our profession, its members and the communities we serve, do hereby commit ourselves to the highest ethical and professional conduct and agree: >1. to accept responsibility in making decisions consistent with the safety, health, and welfare of the public, and to disclose promptly factors that might endanger the public or the environment; >2. to avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest whenever possible, and to disclose them to affected parties when they do exist; >3. to be honest and realistic in stating claims or estimates based on available data; >4. to reject bribery in all its forms; >5. to improve the understanding of technology; its appropriate application, and potential consequences; >6. to maintain and improve our technical competence and to undertake technological tasks for others only if qualified by training or experience, or after full disclosure of pertinent limitations; >7. to seek, accept, and offer honest criticism of technical work, to acknowledge and correct errors, and to credit properly the contributions of others; >8. to treat fairly all persons and to not engage in acts of discrimination based on race, religion, gender, disability, age, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression; >9. to avoid injuring others, their property, reputation, or employment by false or malicious action; >10. to assist colleagues and co-workers in their professional development and to support them in following this code of ethics.

sheraz 10y ago

No. I simply don't work on projects that are part of public safety (traffic lights) or medical devices. Or things of that ilk.