> unethical decisions aren't made at the bottom But they sure are implemented at the bottom. This article was published in CACM, whose target audience is CS a

> unethical decisions aren't made at the bottom But they sure are implemented at the bottom. This article was published in CACM, whose target audience is CS academics and industry professionals. They are the people actually building and researching these technologies. I have literally heard a researcher in deep fakes say without irony that it's not their role to think about ethics in their research, because it will get done anyway, there the ethics questions should be left to others who are better trained to think about such things. That's sure a position to take, but I would say this article serves to speak in opposition to that kind of view. Moshe Vardi is highly respected and very influential, and he's basically calling out researchers and developers in engaged in this work as unethical: Surveillance capitalism is perfectly legal, and enormously profitable, but it is unethical, many people believe, including me Those are heavy words coming from someone of his import. Personally due to the respect I have for him, if Moshe Vardi said that about my work, I'd maybe think twice about how I was spending my time. Because Lord knows the people doing the work of implementing and maintaining surveillance capitalism have very lucrative options. It's not like there isn't interesting work to do outside of this area. It's not like there isn't important work that needs to be done but can't because "surveillance capitalism" is so profitable that it acts as a black hole of young talent. And so what this piece is really about is saying that if these people are going to be engaged in arguably unethical work, then maybe we shouldn't be elevating then with recognition within this particular (very influential) industry group. Instead we should call out what they're doing and introspect a little bit about our relationship with them (I say we and our as a member of the ACM, and I agree with what Moshe Vardi wrote here).