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Only three days ago the NYT published "I Used to Work for Google. I Am a Conscientious Objector." and already we see that someone has coded a automated employee
by meigwilym 7y ago
Only three days ago the NYT published "I Used to Work for Google. I Am a Conscientious Objector." and already we see that someone has coded a automated employee firing system. I assume the same culture that developed the idea persuaded the programmer to implement it.
Software is eating the world, but often not in the way we believe it to do.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/opinion/google-privacy-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/opinion/google-privacy-ch...
- ReptileMan 7y agoIt should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter. As long as the check clears what is the problem with implementing stuff?
- McDev 7y agoWell at some point that engineer should ask themselves why they're writing that procedure for a company called DestroyBaghdad Inc.
- ReptileMan 7y agoMoney. It's useful to have more of it. Or just fun. Solving hard problems is rewarding. There us subset of us that will play Ender's game even if we know beforehand it is not a game just for the thrill. The dystopia is coming, you can only influence which kind and whether you will be near the top.
- lagadu 7y agoBecause DestroyBaghdad Inc. pays well and offers lovely working conditions. Judging the legality of its business actions is a job for the state, not for me.
- empath75 7y agoThat’s how I almost talked myself into working for Palintir.
- Aeolun 7y agoJust the name indicates perfectly well what you are going to be working on. But really, it seems fairly benign compared to some of the other options.
- regularfry 7y agoIt's also a trailing indicator.
- tilolebo 7y agoGodwin point incoming
- krageon 7y agoAre you being sarcastic or is this a genuine belief that you hold? I honestly can't tell.
- lagadu 7y agoAs distasteful as it may sound, it is. Maybe you can accuse of not having morals but if a company's doing something so evil that I may object to it, the odds are that what they're doing is illegal in the first place so all I'd have to do is whistleblow confidentially and the problem sorts itself out. On the other hand if they're doing something very evil but legal, then the problem lies with the lack of regulation of it, as it's virtually guaranteed that some other company is also doing that so quitting a job over it would be ineffective, in that scenario I object by voting towards whichever party proposes the regulation I deem necessary.
- Retra 7y agoAny behavior which is not illegal is tacitly acceptable. That's pretty much the basic tenant of a liberal society.
- dx034 7y agoIt's likely the same that happened at Amazon. The programmer probably didn't create a procedure to fire people, instead it forwards matching data sets to another system. The programmer of that other system implements procedures for terminating employments given a list (which could have enough ethical use cases). Putting both together results in an unethical system but I doubt everyone involved knew about that.
- sadris 7y agoWhy is it ethical to terminate bad employees when a human determines said employee is bad, but unethical if software makes the determination? Ethnic bias would be eliminated in the latter case.
- rasz 7y agoIf break[employee] > 1 minute employees[employee] = "bad employee"
- empath75 7y agoDepending on what information you’re using, you can easily accidentally code ethnic or other biases into the system.
- burger_moon 7y agoAmazon corporate offices have inter-faith prayer rooms and mothers rooms. I have a feeling they don't offer these basic amenities to hourly employees. Given the fact that warehouse employees are pissing in gatorade bottles because they don't have time to use a bathroom I would suspect that participating in a religion that requires stopping work to prayer mid-shift or stopping to go breast feed would cause their quotas to drop. So it's already pretty clear there's a huge bias towards only certain types of people who can even operate successfully in their warehouse as opposed to their corporate offices. Although I guess it's all by design, reading through comments here or anywhere on HN about worker mistreatment outside of high earning tech salaries and you can see how little empathy exists among many people here. These are the people Amazon wants and needs working for them.