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I don't know if the oath comparison works out so well for development. Let us not forget that each physician is directly responsible for a life every time they
by meesles 8y ago
I don't know if the oath comparison works out so well for development. Let us not forget that each physician is directly responsible for a life every time they see someone. They also have a more direct effect on the success or failure of the procedure as they tend to produce a large portion of the work.
I'd argue few companies ever reach this level of risk, and those that do are so large that the individual contributor cannot reasonably take on that burden of responsibility.
In the example of some Amazon surveillance 'big-brother' software: Max the software dev is just making facial recognition software to the best of their ability. They aren't privy to the motivations, long-term plans, and potential consequences of those decisions.
The oath is always a fun topic to discuss though: In reality it holds no meaning other than to the one who takes the oath. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in malpractice cases I doubt they cite the oath as evidence since all students are essentially forced to recite it.
- pixl97 8y agoNo snowflake is responsible for the avalanche, therefore I must pile on as much snow as possible -- The modern developer.
- whatshisface 8y agoNo individual litterer is responsible for a trashed park.
- vallavaraiyan 8y agoBut the snowflake doesn't know that it is falling on a mountain slope.
- ben_w 8y agoIndividual snowflakes are not capable of abstract reasoning. Can we make it a requirement for ourselves to limit our power to our ability to keep that power safe? I think that’s a superset of the problem of incentive alignment in AI safety, so probably not... but we also shouldn’t let the perfect to be the enemy of the improved.
- Nasrudith 8y agoThe analogy works better than you think - gravity is responsible for the avalanche. They are all responding to irresistible forces.
- arkades 8y ago> I don't know if the oath comparison works out so well for development. Let us not forget that each physician is directly responsible for a life every time they see someone I commit every single day of my professional life as a physician to do my best for my patients, and to do the absolute least harm possible. And over the entire course of my lifetime, I will not achieve the scale of harm - or benefit - that a developer can achieve with a few months or years of concentrated effort.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]