3 ms·

Hm, once we draw that line a shit ton of people will have to start asking difficult questions about their work. Not saying it's a bad idea, but it has conseque

by codr7 2y ago

Hm, once we draw that line a shit ton of people will have to start asking difficult questions about their work. Not saying it's a bad idea, but it has consequences that I suspect you have not considered. It's very rare for the people writing the code to have any say in what it does.

otterley 2y ago
> It's very rare for the people writing the code to have any say in what it does. That's no defense. Employment is voluntary, and you cannot break the law while doing your job, even if your employer commands you to.
- TZubiri 2y ago
  It's also a separate issue. One thing is whether we are responsible for our work,and another is whether employers or employees are responsible. In the second case responsibility doesn't vanish, it is transferred.
  - roughly 2y ago
    If your argument is that employees are not responsible for the results of their work - not legally accountable, but morally responsible - I strongly disagree with this. You are always morally responsible for the results of your actions. Always. There may be mitigating circumstances - you need health care for your child’s chronic medical condition, you were faced with an impossible choice and chose the lesser evil, someone literally held a gun to your head - in which case the full moral picture may absolve you, but you still performed the actions that led to the outcomes in question, and you are still responsible for your actions and their consequences.
    - TZubiri 2y ago
      That is yet a third separate question. Let's recap: 1- Are software developers (whether a company as a whole, or an indepent developer) responsible for the software they develop? 2- When a company develops software, is the responsibility on the company owners, the managers, or the employees or all in shared manner? 3- What is the moral responsibility and what is the legal responsibility in what way are they similar in what way are they different? At this point I'd forego the hopes of getting an answer and just focus on trying to make clear questions.
      - roughly 2y ago
        You’re putting in a lot of effort to avoid actually answering any of these questions. I’m sorry if your work leads you to not want those answers. You bear moral responsibility for the outcomes of your actions, whether you do them on your own time or while acting as the agent of a company. You do not get to “transfer” moral responsibility. Soldiers are responsible for their conduct, employees for theirs. And, the overlap between legal and moral responsibility is that legal responsibility sometimes aligns with moral responsibility, but that’s irrelevant for the discussion of the moral. And to cut off the obvious question of “whose morality” - yours. You are accountable to whatever moral system you prefer to live by, but you are always accountable for your actions and their consequences, even when that’s uncomfortable or you’d prefer not to be. We don’t get days off from being human.
        TZubiri 2y ago
        You are arguing with a windmill I've never expressed the opinion you assign to me 1- yes 2- i don't know, it depends 3- different for sure, legally it's split in civil and criminal. Morally speaking it's all mostly blabla unless you can assign it to a specific moral ethos like catholic morals. Fun fact the etymology of morals is customs, as in what is usually done by the people.
- codr7 2y ago
  So if I write say the ORM code for a system that causes some kind of (completely unknown to me) harm, I'm guilty. Sorry, that doesn't compute for me.
  - otterley 2y ago
    No, but if your employer asks you to write software specifically designed to defraud a financial institution, yes, you are breaking the law.
    - deadbabe 2y ago
      Except an employer wouldn’t say that. They would break up the project into separate pieces and engineers would work not really knowing what they’re putting together.
roughly 2y ago
Legally liable is one thing, but if you contribute to a piece of software that has real-world consequences - your trading algorithm generated the money used to fund an election, your guidance software was used to bomb civilians, your algorithmic tweaks led to vaccine denialism becoming widespread - that's consequences of your actions. You can dress it up any way you want - you've got bills to pay, you were ordered to do so, you didn't see it coming, you can't control how people use your software - but at the end of the day, you contributed to those outcomes.

by codr7 2y ago

otterley 2y ago

> It's very rare for the people writing the code to have any say in what it does. That's no defense. Employment is voluntary, and you cannot break the law while doing your job, even if your employer commands you to.

TZubiri 2y ago
It's also a separate issue. One thing is whether we are responsible for our work,and another is whether employers or employees are responsible. In the second case responsibility doesn't vanish, it is transferred.
- roughly 2y ago
  If your argument is that employees are not responsible for the results of their work - not legally accountable, but morally responsible - I strongly disagree with this. You are always morally responsible for the results of your actions. Always. There may be mitigating circumstances - you need health care for your child’s chronic medical condition, you were faced with an impossible choice and chose the lesser evil, someone literally held a gun to your head - in which case the full moral picture may absolve you, but you still performed the actions that led to the outcomes in question, and you are still responsible for your actions and their consequences.
  - TZubiri 2y ago
    That is yet a third separate question. Let's recap: 1- Are software developers (whether a company as a whole, or an indepent developer) responsible for the software they develop? 2- When a company develops software, is the responsibility on the company owners, the managers, or the employees or all in shared manner? 3- What is the moral responsibility and what is the legal responsibility in what way are they similar in what way are they different? At this point I'd forego the hopes of getting an answer and just focus on trying to make clear questions.
    - roughly 2y ago
      You’re putting in a lot of effort to avoid actually answering any of these questions. I’m sorry if your work leads you to not want those answers. You bear moral responsibility for the outcomes of your actions, whether you do them on your own time or while acting as the agent of a company. You do not get to “transfer” moral responsibility. Soldiers are responsible for their conduct, employees for theirs. And, the overlap between legal and moral responsibility is that legal responsibility sometimes aligns with moral responsibility, but that’s irrelevant for the discussion of the moral. And to cut off the obvious question of “whose morality” - yours. You are accountable to whatever moral system you prefer to live by, but you are always accountable for your actions and their consequences, even when that’s uncomfortable or you’d prefer not to be. We don’t get days off from being human.
      - TZubiri 2y ago
        You are arguing with a windmill I've never expressed the opinion you assign to me 1- yes 2- i don't know, it depends 3- different for sure, legally it's split in civil and criminal. Morally speaking it's all mostly blabla unless you can assign it to a specific moral ethos like catholic morals. Fun fact the etymology of morals is customs, as in what is usually done by the people.
codr7 2y ago
So if I write say the ORM code for a system that causes some kind of (completely unknown to me) harm, I'm guilty. Sorry, that doesn't compute for me.
- otterley 2y ago
  No, but if your employer asks you to write software specifically designed to defraud a financial institution, yes, you are breaking the law.
  - deadbabe 2y ago
    Except an employer wouldn’t say that. They would break up the project into separate pieces and engineers would work not really knowing what they’re putting together.

roughly 2y ago

Legally liable is one thing, but if you contribute to a piece of software that has real-world consequences - your trading algorithm generated the money used to fund an election, your guidance software was used to bomb civilians, your algorithmic tweaks led to vaccine denialism becoming widespread - that's consequences of your actions. You can dress it up any way you want - you've got bills to pay, you were ordered to do so, you didn't see it coming, you can't control how people use your software - but at the end of the day, you contributed to those outcomes.