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“ Basically, it is a commitment that we will not build evil things for evil people. ” What about building evil things for good people? Building good things for

by fwlr 3y ago

“ Basically, it is a commitment that we will not build evil things for evil people. ” What about building evil things for good people? Building good things for evil people? Who gets to write the source code of the `isEvil(foo)` function, and can I fork it if I disagree? The section on automation seems deeply confused; first it says that automation must always be manually triggered by the people involved, then in the next sentence it provides guidance on scheduling cron jobs, which would seem to be ruled out by the manual triggering rule. Signing up users to an email list automatically and without a way for them to remove themselves is presented as an example of the kind of evil automation this would prevent, and I agree it should be prevented as I don’t like that either, but it goes on to demonstrate that the proposed rule also inhibits things I think are okay, like if I authenticate with TouchID I want my Mac to sign in with whatever credentials it has at its disposal. The second section on never lying to or tricking users is similarly deeply flawed; it is motivated again by a good example of disallowing unreadable EULAs that sign away personal data, but again goes on to demonstrate its own overbroadness - which reaches so far that it absurdly claims that not solving the cache invalidation problem is a moral violation. The third section is somehow worse still; in trying to make a developer ethically liable for anything anyone does with their code, it positions itself at odds with several of the most common and venerable open sources licenses that vast chunks of software have been built on and released under. Aside from the fact that this is simply unworkable on a level even Stallman would balk at, “opposing some of the most common licenses” should have clued in the author that their document does not align with most software developer moral codes.

austin-cheney 3y ago
Discussions of software and ethics are often painful, because the mere concept of ethics is so utterly foreign and unknown to software as an industry. Ethics is not about right versus wrong. That is morality. So for this conversation it does not matter if a given software is evil, a given client is evil, or if anybody cares that any of these are evil. Evil is irrelevant and highly subjective. Ethics is about conformance to rules that govern practice and behavior. In industries that observe ethics the violations of such rules don't just mean you get fired. It means you can never do that job for anybody ever again. The goal is to ensure that people practicing in a given field of work prioritize the quality of work above that of profit or employer demands.
- saghm 3y ago
  That makes sense, but I'd argue that OP opened the door to actual moral questions by characterizing their ethical code as "don't do evil things for evil people". Even if ethical codes are a morality-neutral set of rules, that goes out the window when the rules themselves start adding explicit moral requirements. Even ignoring the fact that the article itself defines its rules in a moral context, I feel like GP's concerns over the content are equally valid even just as professional rules. I thought the part about cache validation was hyperbole, but no, it's literally right there in the article: "Stale stuff in a cache would be an ethics violation". I don't really see how this would be a remotely reasonable rule for an industrial ethical code that you describe. If we're putting "stale cache results" in the list of rules where breaking them doesn't "just mean you get fired", but that "you can never do that job for anybody ever again", we might as well just all just retire as software developers and take up a new trade; even the best programmers in the world accidentally write buggy code sometimes, so we'd be better off finding some other job on our own terms rather than waiting for inevitably getting "disbarred" (or whatever the equivalent term here would be).
- fwlr 3y ago
  A quick search of morals vs ethics: First result claims morals are your sense of right and wrong, ethics are the good and evil agreed upon by your community. [1] Second and third results claim “morals” and “ethics” are used interchangeably. The second says even philosophers of ethicists consider them interchangeable. Both of them then add that if a distinction is to be drawn, they agree with the first. [2][3] The fourth result says the opposite, that ethics is an “individual assessment” while morality is an “intersubjective community” evaluation. I don’t think the terms are as cleanly separated as your comment suggests. I also firmly disagree with this other claim that the “mere concept of ethics is utterly foreign and unknown” to software as an industry. 1: https://www.verywellmind.com/morality-vs-ethics-what-s-the-difference-5195271 https://www.verywellmind.com/morality-vs-ethics-what-s-the-d... 2: https://www.britannica.com/story/whats-the-difference-between-morality-and-ethics https://www.britannica.com/story/whats-the-difference-betwee... 3: https://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals https://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals 4: https://theconversation.com/amp/you-say-morals-i-say-ethics-whats-the-difference-30913 https://theconversation.com/amp/you-say-morals-i-say-ethics-...
908B64B197 3y ago
Ethics is a trend. It's whatever is trendy to say or think at the moment. A set of arbitrary unenforceable rules to shame practices that is decided by whoever convinced other ethicist to grant him a PhD. Of course, all that is done without going through the rigor of making these practices illegal. That would have a real impact. And require real work. > The section on automation seems deeply confused It makes no sense at all. The author claims to be technical but honestly it reads as something someone who never programmed anything would write. Just knowing the "jargon" and trying to sound like they are more knowledgeable than they are. I noticed "Ethics of X" is generally a great field for those who can't cut it in field X. See the "Ethics of AI crowd as an example", that seems to be mostly made of "tech adjacent" folks. Probably the best example here [0]. > make a developer ethically liable for anything anyone does with their code That's plain nonsense. [0] https://syncedreview.com/2020/06/30/yann-lecun-quits-twitter-amid-acrimonious-exchanges-on-ai-bias/ https://syncedreview.com/2020/06/30/yann-lecun-quits-twitter...
gabereiser 3y ago
Who gets to define “evil”? What’s one man’s trash… I’m all for creating a cause but we can do better than “good” vs “evil”.
peremptor 3y ago
I can only agree with this comment. I think you instantly run into issues with the points raised in the blogpost if you take a look at stuff like reverse engineering or obfuscation tools. Say you have a decompiler like ghidra or a dissasembler like x64dbg even. These tools are heavily used by malicious actors AND the people working actively against them. Would creation and updating of such tools be "ethically neutral" or would we ask the creators of such tools to be held "ethically accountable" for what bad actors do with them ? That would lead to the age old bad situtation, that you have the bad guys with the tools and the good guys cant do anyting about this as this type of research would be considered ehtically questionable at best.
paulddraper 3y ago
"Don't be evil" - Someone, somewhere

by fwlr 3y ago

austin-cheney 3y ago

Discussions of software and ethics are often painful, because the mere concept of ethics is so utterly foreign and unknown to software as an industry. Ethics is not about right versus wrong. That is morality. So for this conversation it does not matter if a given software is evil, a given client is evil, or if anybody cares that any of these are evil. Evil is irrelevant and highly subjective. Ethics is about conformance to rules that govern practice and behavior. In industries that observe ethics the violations of such rules don't just mean you get fired. It means you can never do that job for anybody ever again. The goal is to ensure that people practicing in a given field of work prioritize the quality of work above that of profit or employer demands.

saghm 3y ago
That makes sense, but I'd argue that OP opened the door to actual moral questions by characterizing their ethical code as "don't do evil things for evil people". Even if ethical codes are a morality-neutral set of rules, that goes out the window when the rules themselves start adding explicit moral requirements. Even ignoring the fact that the article itself defines its rules in a moral context, I feel like GP's concerns over the content are equally valid even just as professional rules. I thought the part about cache validation was hyperbole, but no, it's literally right there in the article: "Stale stuff in a cache would be an ethics violation". I don't really see how this would be a remotely reasonable rule for an industrial ethical code that you describe. If we're putting "stale cache results" in the list of rules where breaking them doesn't "just mean you get fired", but that "you can never do that job for anybody ever again", we might as well just all just retire as software developers and take up a new trade; even the best programmers in the world accidentally write buggy code sometimes, so we'd be better off finding some other job on our own terms rather than waiting for inevitably getting "disbarred" (or whatever the equivalent term here would be).
fwlr 3y ago
A quick search of morals vs ethics: First result claims morals are your sense of right and wrong, ethics are the good and evil agreed upon by your community. [1] Second and third results claim “morals” and “ethics” are used interchangeably. The second says even philosophers of ethicists consider them interchangeable. Both of them then add that if a distinction is to be drawn, they agree with the first. [2][3] The fourth result says the opposite, that ethics is an “individual assessment” while morality is an “intersubjective community” evaluation. I don’t think the terms are as cleanly separated as your comment suggests. I also firmly disagree with this other claim that the “mere concept of ethics is utterly foreign and unknown” to software as an industry. 1: https://www.verywellmind.com/morality-vs-ethics-what-s-the-difference-5195271 https://www.verywellmind.com/morality-vs-ethics-what-s-the-d... 2: https://www.britannica.com/story/whats-the-difference-between-morality-and-ethics https://www.britannica.com/story/whats-the-difference-betwee... 3: https://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals https://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals 4: https://theconversation.com/amp/you-say-morals-i-say-ethics-whats-the-difference-30913 https://theconversation.com/amp/you-say-morals-i-say-ethics-...

908B64B197 3y ago

Ethics is a trend. It's whatever is trendy to say or think at the moment. A set of arbitrary unenforceable rules to shame practices that is decided by whoever convinced other ethicist to grant him a PhD. Of course, all that is done without going through the rigor of making these practices illegal. That would have a real impact. And require real work. > The section on automation seems deeply confused It makes no sense at all. The author claims to be technical but honestly it reads as something someone who never programmed anything would write. Just knowing the "jargon" and trying to sound like they are more knowledgeable than they are. I noticed "Ethics of X" is generally a great field for those who can't cut it in field X. See the "Ethics of AI crowd as an example", that seems to be mostly made of "tech adjacent" folks. Probably the best example here [0]. > make a developer ethically liable for anything anyone does with their code That's plain nonsense. [0] https://syncedreview.com/2020/06/30/yann-lecun-quits-twitter-amid-acrimonious-exchanges-on-ai-bias/ https://syncedreview.com/2020/06/30/yann-lecun-quits-twitter...

gabereiser 3y ago

Who gets to define “evil”? What’s one man’s trash… I’m all for creating a cause but we can do better than “good” vs “evil”.

peremptor 3y ago

I can only agree with this comment. I think you instantly run into issues with the points raised in the blogpost if you take a look at stuff like reverse engineering or obfuscation tools. Say you have a decompiler like ghidra or a dissasembler like x64dbg even. These tools are heavily used by malicious actors AND the people working actively against them. Would creation and updating of such tools be "ethically neutral" or would we ask the creators of such tools to be held "ethically accountable" for what bad actors do with them ? That would lead to the age old bad situtation, that you have the bad guys with the tools and the good guys cant do anyting about this as this type of research would be considered ehtically questionable at best.

paulddraper 3y ago

"Don't be evil" - Someone, somewhere