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Hi, I just saw that someone posted our manifesto here. Thank you! If you have any questions, please ask me here. I will try to answer them. Best regards, Nil

Hi, I just saw that someone posted our manifesto here. Thank you! If you have any questions, please ask me here. I will try to answer them. Best regards, Nils

throwaway729 10y ago
First, thanks for setting this up! It seems like everything in the manifesto boils down to #1 ("I will act according to my conscience"), because everything else is vague enough to be debatable. Some engineering disciplines augment high-level oaths (such as this one) with concrete, enforceable codes of conduct. They also put in place a barrier to entry, so that phrases such as "will do my very best" carry with them the force of assumed competence -- i.e., there's a limit on precisely how bad "best" is allowed to be. Do you support the professionalization of Software Engineering? Have we reached a point where software is important and pervasive enough that legally enforceable professional codes of conduct are now reasonable? I ask because it seems odd to me that someone would think something like this pledge is necessary and good, but also not support treating Software Engineering as a proper engineering discipline. So I'm very interested in your reasoning, especially if your answer to the above question is "no". Again, thanks!
- NilsLoewe 10y ago
  "It seems like everything in the manifesto boils down to #1 ("I will act according to my conscience")" Yes I think software engineering has reached this part of professionalism at many places. There, these specific codes of conduct are already in place (DO-178b, IEC 61508, ...). But software is reaching more and more places and the barriers are lower every day. I believe that we need the discussion about ethics across all layers of professionalism. This manifesto is of course not enforable. But it is meant as a basis for discussion.
crawfordcomeaux 10y ago
I'm with the earlier commenter noting the code of ethics from IEEE & ACM. I think there are aspects of human life not being addressed in either their set or yours, though. What's missing: - minimizing attention required - preserving human connection - digital addiction prevention, detection, mitigation - ethical software that knows how we're feeling (we need to start thinking about this one now before the tech becomes ubiquitous) The problem I see with each of these is that we have very few design processes for addressing them, so asking people to focus on them leads to continued naive harm due to a lack of understanding. Most social media serves to connect humans, but actual human connection is poorly maintained through it. I'm working on a scientific theory of design that combines neuroscience with mindfulness & design thinking. The list I mentioned above are the core problems in trying to tackle with it. I'm curious...what are your thoughts on all this as they apply to the manifesto?

Hi, I just saw that someone posted our manifesto here. Thank you! If you have any questions, please ask me here. I will try to answer them. Best regards, Nils

throwaway729 10y ago

First, thanks for setting this up! It seems like everything in the manifesto boils down to #1 ("I will act according to my conscience"), because everything else is vague enough to be debatable. Some engineering disciplines augment high-level oaths (such as this one) with concrete, enforceable codes of conduct. They also put in place a barrier to entry, so that phrases such as "will do my very best" carry with them the force of assumed competence -- i.e., there's a limit on precisely how bad "best" is allowed to be. Do you support the professionalization of Software Engineering? Have we reached a point where software is important and pervasive enough that legally enforceable professional codes of conduct are now reasonable? I ask because it seems odd to me that someone would think something like this pledge is necessary and good, but also not support treating Software Engineering as a proper engineering discipline. So I'm very interested in your reasoning, especially if your answer to the above question is "no". Again, thanks!

NilsLoewe 10y ago
"It seems like everything in the manifesto boils down to #1 ("I will act according to my conscience")" Yes I think software engineering has reached this part of professionalism at many places. There, these specific codes of conduct are already in place (DO-178b, IEC 61508, ...). But software is reaching more and more places and the barriers are lower every day. I believe that we need the discussion about ethics across all layers of professionalism. This manifesto is of course not enforable. But it is meant as a basis for discussion.

crawfordcomeaux 10y ago

I'm with the earlier commenter noting the code of ethics from IEEE & ACM. I think there are aspects of human life not being addressed in either their set or yours, though. What's missing: - minimizing attention required - preserving human connection - digital addiction prevention, detection, mitigation - ethical software that knows how we're feeling (we need to start thinking about this one now before the tech becomes ubiquitous) The problem I see with each of these is that we have very few design processes for addressing them, so asking people to focus on them leads to continued naive harm due to a lack of understanding. Most social media serves to connect humans, but actual human connection is poorly maintained through it. I'm working on a scientific theory of design that combines neuroscience with mindfulness & design thinking. The list I mentioned above are the core problems in trying to tackle with it. I'm curious...what are your thoughts on all this as they apply to the manifesto?