Even if AI is evil, most developers don't think it's the fault of the programmers. Fifty-eight percent say that ethics are the responsibility of upper managemen

Even if AI is evil, most developers don't think it's the fault of the programmers. Fifty-eight percent say that ethics are the responsibility of upper management, 23 percent the inventor of the unethical idea, and just 20 percent think that they're the responsibility of the developer who actually wrote the code. It's shocking to me that people would blame the invention of the idea. I think talking about unethical ways of doing business before they're adopted is useful, because it gives society a chance to frame the debate and possibly even criminalize the behavior before entire companies depend on it for their business model. Most unethical business behaviors are semi-obvious anyway, in the sense that they're going to occur to many people right away rather than waiting on a genius stroke of inspiration that might come this year or five years from now. If you think of an unethical idea at work, odds are that five other people are already thinking of it too, and one of them is planning how to implement it. Seize the initiative. Talk about the idea and frame it as evil. Make it a joke among the engineers. "Of course if we were really evil, we could do X." "Nice, what a way to fuck our customers over and make money from it." "Not that I could actually bring myself to do it." "Where's Martin Shkreli when you need him?" (Reference a company that went down in flames, a person who went crying to prison. It doesn't matter if Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg is a better comparison; don't mention a company with a thriving business or a person making bank with impunity. Success gives everything a halo.) If you do this effectively, then the company has to consider the cost of embracing an idea that has already been framed as evil. They'll have to consider that they won't have the most enthusiastic cooperation from some of the engineers, that it will decrease people's pride and job satisfaction, that some engineers who have other opportunities might decide to leave so they can still be proud of their work. They will have to consider morale outside of engineering as well, because people in other departments will be saying, "What is the deal here? The engineers seem to think that what we're doing is really slimy. Am I going to be embarrassed to tell my friends about this?" Management might still go ahead with it, but on the other hand they might decide to do something else instead. And if they do it, they'll at least profit a little bit less because of the friction you created.