3 ms·

Is behaving ethically not a part of being a designer or a PM or a director/boss?

brobdingnagians 6y ago
And, what's more, isn't behaving ethically not part of being human? Aristotle and a while host of philosophers certainly thought so. Extending this, why don't we expect everyone in society to behave ethically? But then we get into arguments about what is ethical, because people disagree on that, and people naturally will disagree on what is ethical in software development, which isn't always a problem. The is a diversity of opinion, though since are clearly extreme. One of the issues with a "Hippocratic oath" for software developers is that software spans the while spectrum of human activity and thought. Constraining software is nearly equivalent to constraining human thought in more ways than one.
- Ygg2 6y ago
  Ethic is subjective. Across time and space. Want to see an example - Ask Aristotle are women same or lower than men?
  - pixl97 6y ago
    And relevant to this conversation, software can be written anywhere especially if you need alternative ethics.
- makomk 6y ago
  Yeah, the problem with this idea is that it assumes there's one fixed set of right ethical values everyone should agree on. Take for example the actual, original Hippocratic Oath - it required, amongst other things, doctors not to provide abortions to women. There's still a large number of Americans who hold this ethical belief, but I'd venture a guess that almost all the people pushing for ethics in software development hold the exact diametrically opposite view. A lot of the demands for software ethics get into even fuzzier and more complicated territory, like whether the companies which control our mass communications should use that control to decide which political views people should be able to share and what they should target, whether this is good or bad for democracy, etc. Also, many of them seem to be things that would've been incredibly niche viewpoints even a decade ago. I've seen people in another thread thinking that Google promised not to use e-mail contents to sell ads originally and then snuck that in, but in reality basing ads on the contents of e-mails was part of their business model all along and it's just that no-one cared when they launched because it was so much less obnoxious than the ads on other providers. Somewhere along the way, we got this meme about big tech selling our personal information, and everyone seems to project it backwards in time onto how people felt before the meme.
Polylactic_acid 6y ago
Ethics are subjective. Plenty of people working at facebook will tell you their work is ethical.
jimmySixDOF 6y ago
That's why Smith also talks about a new DIGITAL GENEVA CONVENTION - not just a code for devs - so there is a defined framework for everyone in the chain. Pls excuse the caps, but too many people seem to ignore this very important part of his argument here.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  I thought everyone ignored it because that is what would happen in practice. Like the actual Geneva convention only applying in an unconditional surrender or complete defeat.

And, what's more, isn't behaving ethically not part of being human? Aristotle and a while host of philosophers certainly thought so. Extending this, why don't we expect everyone in society to behave ethically? But then we get into arguments about what is ethical, because people disagree on that, and people naturally will disagree on what is ethical in software development, which isn't always a problem. The is a diversity of opinion, though since are clearly extreme. One of the issues with a "Hippocratic oath" for software developers is that software spans the while spectrum of human activity and thought. Constraining software is nearly equivalent to constraining human thought in more ways than one.

Ygg2 6y ago
Ethic is subjective. Across time and space. Want to see an example - Ask Aristotle are women same or lower than men?
- pixl97 6y ago
  And relevant to this conversation, software can be written anywhere especially if you need alternative ethics.
makomk 6y ago
Yeah, the problem with this idea is that it assumes there's one fixed set of right ethical values everyone should agree on. Take for example the actual, original Hippocratic Oath - it required, amongst other things, doctors not to provide abortions to women. There's still a large number of Americans who hold this ethical belief, but I'd venture a guess that almost all the people pushing for ethics in software development hold the exact diametrically opposite view. A lot of the demands for software ethics get into even fuzzier and more complicated territory, like whether the companies which control our mass communications should use that control to decide which political views people should be able to share and what they should target, whether this is good or bad for democracy, etc. Also, many of them seem to be things that would've been incredibly niche viewpoints even a decade ago. I've seen people in another thread thinking that Google promised not to use e-mail contents to sell ads originally and then snuck that in, but in reality basing ads on the contents of e-mails was part of their business model all along and it's just that no-one cared when they launched because it was so much less obnoxious than the ads on other providers. Somewhere along the way, we got this meme about big tech selling our personal information, and everyone seems to project it backwards in time onto how people felt before the meme.

Polylactic_acid 6y ago

Ethics are subjective. Plenty of people working at facebook will tell you their work is ethical.

jimmySixDOF 6y ago

That's why Smith also talks about a new DIGITAL GENEVA CONVENTION - not just a code for devs - so there is a defined framework for everyone in the chain. Pls excuse the caps, but too many people seem to ignore this very important part of his argument here.

Nasrudith 6y ago
I thought everyone ignored it because that is what would happen in practice. Like the actual Geneva convention only applying in an unconditional surrender or complete defeat.