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While I applaud this effort, this will not stop the use of the technology. It will simply steer them to another provider or a custom implementation (on top of A

While I applaud this effort, this will not stop the use of the technology. It will simply steer them to another provider or a custom implementation (on top of AWS if they so choose to) of this now well-understood technology.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
FartyMcFarter 8y ago
Sure. But let's be clear - it is good to have as many software developers as possible steering away from unethical work.
- Spivak 8y ago
  Is it really the tool that's unethical or the argument here just about depriving governments they don't like tools in general? "Twenty shareholders from Ford demand they stop selling cars to local law enforcement."
  - FartyMcFarter 8y ago
    > Is it really the tool that's unethical Amazon runs the tool on AWS servers they control, so they can (and should) be responsible for having policies that forbid its unethical use. Here is AWS's Acceptable Use Policy: https://aws.amazon.com/aup/ https://aws.amazon.com/aup/ I don't see anything there about ethics.
    - somethingwitty1 8y ago
      I don't know about this argument though. If Amazon bans a book based on their ethics, people freak out about censorship and how one company has so much power and shouldn't be doing that. If their AUP stated what they deemed ethical, how many potential startups or corporations wouldn't be able to start? Take a "simple" example: A business that counsels families on abortion. Is that ethical? Who gets to decide that? I think this is one of those cases where we have to be very careful what we are asking for.
    - sadris 8y ago
      > unethical use Is arresting criminals based on photographic evidence "unethical" now?
    - FartyMcFarter 8y ago
      > Is arresting criminals based on photographic evidence "unethical" now? IMO creating a police state is unethical - the proliferation of cheap surveillance technology helps do that.
  - brew-hacker 8y ago
    I completely agree -- wouldn't you rather help law enforcement and our military protect our well-being?
    - confounded 8y ago
      Be a true patriot; set all passwords to ‘password’.
      - sonnyblarney 8y ago
        'No Secrets' [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakers_(1992_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakers_(1992_film)
        skepticaldrunk 8y ago
        "Too many secrets". Setec Astronomy.
    - ionised 8y ago
      They don't protect your wellbeing, they protect the entrenched interests of the hyper-capitalist corporate class.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  "it is good to have as many software developers as possible steering away from unethical work." Is it unethical to track down violent activists? Is it unethical to check for people crossing the border illegally? And this thing about the tech being used to single out 'people of colour' I think we can dismiss that out of hand - the tech won't be used for that ... though the application of the tech may disproportionately affect some groups (say the cops create a 'watch zone in S. Chicago' but not elsewhere). But at least in the former scenarios, it's fairly grey thing. At border crossings, I can see this could be very reasonable. Walking down the street in 'wherever USA' tagged for something I can see ethical problems. It depends on how it's used ... we need some new laws ...
  - bigiain 8y ago
    You're right - there's _lots_ of grey area here, and some people's ethics are different from mine (and mine are probably different from yours, at least at the boundaries. _Most_ people agree on basic human rights, they just all define them differently sometimes...) While I agree we need new laws, I also recognise that laws by necessity change slower than fashions, so there's always a period (often a long period) where laws trail behind what's going on in society. It's during those periods where approaches like "it is good to have as many software developers as possible steering away from unethical work." might help.
  - bigiain 8y ago
    > At border crossings, I can see this could be very reasonable. Note that it's also least necessary at border crossings. As a non-US citizen I'm already required to give my fingerprints and retinal scan to border control agents. Like you say it's the "walking down the street" problem - for me at least perhaps more accurately described as the "done at many orders of magnitude more scale, in circumstances where you have no option to opt out". If I don't like border control practices, I have the option of not crossing a border (at whatever cost to me that implies, but I have _some_ agency there). When this is deployed on streets, shopping centers, trainstations, and other similar places - I've lost any agency in being able to choose not to be involved/identified. (Note too, that the USA defines "border areas" where I'm legally able to be stopped and fingerprinted/retina scanned as "anywhere within 100 miles of a border" which includes pretty much all of California and New York, and anywhere within 100 miles of each coast or the north/south borders.)
- tomelders 8y ago
  Yeah but... that means the people who do take on this work will be the zealots who never doubt what they're doing. That's not to say that non-zealots should take on this work to keep the zealots out. I'm just saying that we're screwed so long as there are no laws prohibiting governments for doing this sort of stuff, because there will always be devs willing to use their powers for evil.
  - bigiain 8y ago
    Those zealots would do it anyway. If there's any correlation between non-zealot-developers and highly-effective-developers (which there may not be, but the optimist in me hope there is), then the world might be a better place as a result of this... (Note, I have been _tempted_ to take on work that fascinates be on a technical level, that I disagree with on an ethical level. I've never crossed my own personal ethical line there, but - without judging - I can see why the temptation succeeds for some people...)

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

FartyMcFarter 8y ago

Sure. But let's be clear - it is good to have as many software developers as possible steering away from unethical work.

Spivak 8y ago
Is it really the tool that's unethical or the argument here just about depriving governments they don't like tools in general? "Twenty shareholders from Ford demand they stop selling cars to local law enforcement."
- FartyMcFarter 8y ago
  > Is it really the tool that's unethical Amazon runs the tool on AWS servers they control, so they can (and should) be responsible for having policies that forbid its unethical use. Here is AWS's Acceptable Use Policy: https://aws.amazon.com/aup/ https://aws.amazon.com/aup/ I don't see anything there about ethics.
  - somethingwitty1 8y ago
    I don't know about this argument though. If Amazon bans a book based on their ethics, people freak out about censorship and how one company has so much power and shouldn't be doing that. If their AUP stated what they deemed ethical, how many potential startups or corporations wouldn't be able to start? Take a "simple" example: A business that counsels families on abortion. Is that ethical? Who gets to decide that? I think this is one of those cases where we have to be very careful what we are asking for.
  - sadris 8y ago
    > unethical use Is arresting criminals based on photographic evidence "unethical" now?
  - FartyMcFarter 8y ago
    > Is arresting criminals based on photographic evidence "unethical" now? IMO creating a police state is unethical - the proliferation of cheap surveillance technology helps do that.
- brew-hacker 8y ago
  I completely agree -- wouldn't you rather help law enforcement and our military protect our well-being?
  - confounded 8y ago
    Be a true patriot; set all passwords to ‘password’.
    - sonnyblarney 8y ago
      'No Secrets' [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakers_(1992_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakers_(1992_film)
      - skepticaldrunk 8y ago
        "Too many secrets". Setec Astronomy.
  - ionised 8y ago
    They don't protect your wellbeing, they protect the entrenched interests of the hyper-capitalist corporate class.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
"it is good to have as many software developers as possible steering away from unethical work." Is it unethical to track down violent activists? Is it unethical to check for people crossing the border illegally? And this thing about the tech being used to single out 'people of colour' I think we can dismiss that out of hand - the tech won't be used for that ... though the application of the tech may disproportionately affect some groups (say the cops create a 'watch zone in S. Chicago' but not elsewhere). But at least in the former scenarios, it's fairly grey thing. At border crossings, I can see this could be very reasonable. Walking down the street in 'wherever USA' tagged for something I can see ethical problems. It depends on how it's used ... we need some new laws ...
- bigiain 8y ago
  You're right - there's _lots_ of grey area here, and some people's ethics are different from mine (and mine are probably different from yours, at least at the boundaries. _Most_ people agree on basic human rights, they just all define them differently sometimes...) While I agree we need new laws, I also recognise that laws by necessity change slower than fashions, so there's always a period (often a long period) where laws trail behind what's going on in society. It's during those periods where approaches like "it is good to have as many software developers as possible steering away from unethical work." might help.
- bigiain 8y ago
  > At border crossings, I can see this could be very reasonable. Note that it's also least necessary at border crossings. As a non-US citizen I'm already required to give my fingerprints and retinal scan to border control agents. Like you say it's the "walking down the street" problem - for me at least perhaps more accurately described as the "done at many orders of magnitude more scale, in circumstances where you have no option to opt out". If I don't like border control practices, I have the option of not crossing a border (at whatever cost to me that implies, but I have _some_ agency there). When this is deployed on streets, shopping centers, trainstations, and other similar places - I've lost any agency in being able to choose not to be involved/identified. (Note too, that the USA defines "border areas" where I'm legally able to be stopped and fingerprinted/retina scanned as "anywhere within 100 miles of a border" which includes pretty much all of California and New York, and anywhere within 100 miles of each coast or the north/south borders.)
tomelders 8y ago
Yeah but... that means the people who do take on this work will be the zealots who never doubt what they're doing. That's not to say that non-zealots should take on this work to keep the zealots out. I'm just saying that we're screwed so long as there are no laws prohibiting governments for doing this sort of stuff, because there will always be devs willing to use their powers for evil.
- bigiain 8y ago
  Those zealots would do it anyway. If there's any correlation between non-zealot-developers and highly-effective-developers (which there may not be, but the optimist in me hope there is), then the world might be a better place as a result of this... (Note, I have been _tempted_ to take on work that fascinates be on a technical level, that I disagree with on an ethical level. I've never crossed my own personal ethical line there, but - without judging - I can see why the temptation succeeds for some people...)