3 ms·

What's so interesting about this 2 months old article today?

• tosh 6y ago
  I was wondering what happened to the engineer because he is mentioned in the fast.ai book chapter on ethics in data science and stumbled upon this article. > It's not just a moral burden, either. Sometimes technologists pay very directly for their actions. For instance, the first person who was jailed as a result of the Volkswagen scandal, where the car company was revealed to have cheated on its diesel emissions tests, was not the manager that oversaw the project, or an executive at the helm of the company. It was one of the engineers, James Liang, who just did what he was told. https://github.com/fastai/fastbook/blob/master/03_ethics.ipynb https://github.com/fastai/fastbook/blob/master/03_ethics.ipy...
  • lowdose 6y ago
    > It was one of the engineers, James Liang, who just did what he was told. Everyone is an independent agent and would like to avoid the most obvious Godwin here.
    • nexuist 6y ago
      Admittedly it is a bit easier to blame the independent agent in this case where he lives in a state that provides a strong safety net and healthcare. In the US, where you depend on your employer for healthcare, you could make the case that this form of free will to reject unethical projects does not exist because of the leverage your employer has over your life.
      • lowdose 6y ago
        Is this leverage intentional or a side effect?