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I'm grateful for walrus's comment. And yet I feel they are in the minority. We are long past time for real professional ethics in our professions. If we are s

I'm grateful for walrus's comment. And yet I feel they are in the minority. We are long past time for real professional ethics in our professions. If we are so bold as to claim the title "engineer," where are our obligatory professional standards? Our licensure? Our - gasp - liability? If a structural engineer designs a bridge in a way that ignores established best practices, and the bridge fails and causes injuries, the engineer is held responsible. Why are our professions different?

walrus01 7y ago
I am far from a professional coder - but I am pleased to see that a growing number of English language universities which offer 4-year bachelors of computer science degrees are making an ethics course a mandatory requirement for graduation. The principle is the same: If your job functions at layers 4-7 in the OSI model, don't create software that does something terrible with personal data for financial gain, and if your job concerns OSI layers 1-3, don't fuck with the Internet. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/harvard-works-to-embed-ethics-in-computer-science-curriculum/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/harvard-works... https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/the-spark-guide-to-life-episode-five-ethics-1.5191015/why-computer-science-students-are-demanding-more-ethics-classes-1.4812742 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/the-spark-guide-to-life-episo...
- asfarley 7y ago
  In my experience, people committing ethics violations would not have been stopped by taking an ethics course... it's not an information problem
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    You’d be surprised how many idiots/uninformed people are out there that really didn’t know X was wrong when it was obvious to most of us. But an ethics course is mostly CYA for the company.
Aeolun 7y ago
If a professional Engineer designs a wall. Lets say, a huge land wall across the border of a country. Do we say that engineer is unethical, and that he should never have participated?
- walrus01 7y ago
  as a more concrete example of what is being implemented now, which the residents of HK would like to avoid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8a8yG0uEaw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8a8yG0uEaw
- Riverheart 7y ago
  Like a wall across the US/Mexico border?
jldugger 7y ago
> Why are our professions different? Largely because of the industrial exemption. The liability you want is already absorbed by employers. The only thing that industrial exemption doesn't apply to is structural designs. I see no reason to treat software any different than chips or automobiles, so I don't really think it would change much. Certainly we wouldn't hold network engineers personally liable for outages or whatever else you have in mind.

walrus01 7y ago

I am far from a professional coder - but I am pleased to see that a growing number of English language universities which offer 4-year bachelors of computer science degrees are making an ethics course a mandatory requirement for graduation. The principle is the same: If your job functions at layers 4-7 in the OSI model, don't create software that does something terrible with personal data for financial gain, and if your job concerns OSI layers 1-3, don't fuck with the Internet. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/harvard-works-to-embed-ethics-in-computer-science-curriculum/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/01/harvard-works... https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/the-spark-guide-to-life-episode-five-ethics-1.5191015/why-computer-science-students-are-demanding-more-ethics-classes-1.4812742 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/the-spark-guide-to-life-episo...

asfarley 7y ago
In my experience, people committing ethics violations would not have been stopped by taking an ethics course... it's not an information problem
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  You’d be surprised how many idiots/uninformed people are out there that really didn’t know X was wrong when it was obvious to most of us. But an ethics course is mostly CYA for the company.

Aeolun 7y ago

If a professional Engineer designs a wall. Lets say, a huge land wall across the border of a country. Do we say that engineer is unethical, and that he should never have participated?

walrus01 7y ago
as a more concrete example of what is being implemented now, which the residents of HK would like to avoid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8a8yG0uEaw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8a8yG0uEaw
Riverheart 7y ago
Like a wall across the US/Mexico border?

jldugger 7y ago

> Why are our professions different? Largely because of the industrial exemption. The liability you want is already absorbed by employers. The only thing that industrial exemption doesn't apply to is structural designs. I see no reason to treat software any different than chips or automobiles, so I don't really think it would change much. Certainly we wouldn't hold network engineers personally liable for outages or whatever else you have in mind.