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>Maybe it's time to create a Hippocratic Oath for developers to publicly commit to? This is silly. Stop trying to add grandeur to writing some code at X,Y star

by mjolk 14y ago

>Maybe it's time to create a Hippocratic Oath for developers to publicly commit to? This is silly. Stop trying to add grandeur to writing some code at X,Y startup/company. People don't die or get harmed when some social-messaging application spams someone. Code is a way to implement an idea. Most applications exist to make money. If this a shock to you, read the user agreement before installing/upgrading, uninstall the application, or realize that in social networking, your personal data what the company uses to make a profit.

darxius 14y ago
I disagree. As a computer engineer in Canada, I must swear by the Code of Ethics because what I do (or potentially don't do) can cause harm. Ethics in computer-science-related fields are important and I think we do need a set of rules we can dogmatically follow like the Hippocratic Oath. Of course, the HO is different in that failing to follow can cause physical harm. However, the world is progressing quickly and more and more information is hosted online -- personal information. I think it's our jobs to make sure we don't promote poor practice and un-ethical behaviour.
- nnnnni 14y ago
  So you wear the ring then, eh?
  - darxius 14y ago
    Soon :) I'm just entering my final year of study.
    - nnnnni 14y ago
      I'm not sure where you are, but... be sure to wear a lot of layers of clothes with at least one all-black layer on the finals day. Seriously. I hope that you'll see this in time!
- smsm42 14y ago
  So in Canada, software engineers never cause harm to anyone? Nice to know. >>>> I think we do need a set of rules we can dogmatically follow like the Hippocratic Oath. So you don't actually have to employ your own brain and your own moral judgement, because somebody already did it for you and wrote this nice set of rules, that you swore by Apollo to faithfully execute, without thinking, not unlike that box of wires and silicon chips you are paid to play with? Nice arrangement, I suppose. >>>> I think it's our jobs to make sure we don't promote poor practice and un-ethical behaviour. And you need to sign an explicit oath to do that?
  - darxius 14y ago
    I think you're missing the point. The oath is to remind you to use your head, your best judgement and a body of ethics and to act in the interest of the public. Sure engineers still make mistakes, but the code of ethics isn't some magical document that eliminated human error. Also, I think you're sort of merging the HO with the Code of Ethics for engineers in Canada -- two very different documents and I suggest you give them a read. And no, no one still thinks they're swearing to Apollo.
    - smsm42 14y ago
      >>>> The oath is to remind you to use your head, your best judgement and a body of ethics Why you need an oath for that - shouldn't it be always the default behavior? >>>> and to act in the interest of the public. "Interest of the public" is a very dangerous thing. I can remember a lot of very bad things that were done "in the interest of the public". You can make almost anything pass as "in the interest of the public" if you want to. Murder? Millions were murdered "in the interest of the public", because they were of the wrong ethnicity, class, physical features or just in the wrong place in the wrong time. Robbery? Millions were stripped of their property and reduced to utter poverty because it was claimed it is "interest of the public" to do so. And so on, and so forth. I would rather steer clear of anything that has "interest of the public" written on it, at least until it's very clear what is underneath. Too many things that were underneath such writing proved to be a disaster. >>> no one still thinks they're swearing to Apollo. Swearing to a document composed by a faceless bureaucracy is no better. If you have code of ethics, live by it, if you do not - get one. What Apollo or his modern equivalent, the almighty bureaucracy, has to do with it?
- mjolk 14y ago
  >I think it's our jobs to make sure we don't promote poor practice and un-ethical behaviour. No, it's our responsibility as decent people. I don't need to sign some online pledge to keep myself from pushing people in front of trains. If I was the sort to harm others, why would I care about some meaningless online campaign?
  - darxius 14y ago
    There's nothing to sign and it's not a campaign. You're right, it is our responsibility as decent people to uphold a certain level of moral and ethical behaviour, especially when the software we write is in control of sensitive information. The Oath is there to remind you to act in the best interest of the user. There are no formalities and although it seems common sense to people like you and me, others might not see it so clearly.
  - tripzilch 14y ago
    > I don't need to sign some online pledge to keep myself from pushing people in front of trains. Neither do doctors really need the Oath of Hippocrates to stop themselves from harming people.
    - mpyne 14y ago
      Which is convenient, because the Oath of Hippocrates has not actually stopped doctors from harming people.
  - freshhawk 14y ago
    "No, it's our responsibility as decent people" Well, yes. But there is a reason that every profession that has tackled this problem has used a system of oaths and certification. Engineers, Doctors and Lawyers are the canonical examples. You need something that is given and can be taken away for bad behaviour in order to change behaviour at this level. Damn human brains.
    - pekk 14y ago
      Taken away by whom and on what basis? I would dispute that you need the ability to take away other individuals' ability to lawfully write software. That ability is bound to be abused for political reasons (which is also what it looks like when people have reasonably different ethical systems and one imposes his by force). Anyway, the issue at hand is bad corporate behavior, not bad programmers. I don't see why we need to start licking our chops about the prospect of forming a blacklist against individual programmers.
gjm11 14y ago
> People don't die or get harmed when some social-messaging application spams someone. Of course they get harmed: their time is wasted, and perhaps their concentration disturbed. This is a small harm to each victim, no doubt about it, but if you write code that makes your social-messaging application spam people then you're delivering that small harm to a large number of people. If your code wastes 10 seconds each, just once, for a million people, that's about three person-months of aggregate time you've stolen that will never come back. It's quite true that "in social networking, your personal data what the company uses to make a profit". But if it were near-universal practice for new software engineers to swear a solemn oath not to use their powers for evil, who knows? perhaps some other business model for social networking might have had a chance to succeed.
- disgruntledphd2 14y ago
  Its also true that in search, your personal data is what the company uses to make a profit. And yet, one hears less complaints about that. I'm not justifying either approach, by the way, just observing what I regard as a strange disconnect.
nollidge 14y ago
Of course people get harmed. The harm just has vastly less depth and vastly more breadth.
angersock 14y ago
You really come off as an amoral jerk here. What happens if an app for job seekers texts your boss? What if a casual hookup site texts your new girlfriend--even though you signed up a year before meeting her? What happens if your app calls an old person and they crack a hip trying to answer a phone--when everyone that knows them personally knows not to call until they're awake and their caretaker is in? These may sound far-fetched, and we all mostly don't pretend we're as disciplined as structural engineers, but "we do it for the money lulz" is a shitty and stupid argument.
- mjolk 14y ago
  >You really come off as an amoral jerk here. I'm okay with this. I'd rather be calculating than have my head in the sand about the business models of social networking what-have-you applications. >What if a casual hookup site texts your new girlfriend--even though you signed up a year before meeting her? While I don't and won't have to experience this, your imagined relationship suffers more from lack of trust and honesty than "some dumb app does some dumb, annoying thing." >"we do it for the money lulz" is a shitty and stupid argument. Don't Straw Man me. If my code was going to be used for something I perceive as evil, I'd leave the job. Our industry doesn't need yet another pointless, embarrassing ethics/integrity campaign when the people writing the code don't care.
  - saraid216 14y ago
    > Our industry doesn't need yet another pointless, embarrassing ethics/integrity campaign when the people writing the code don't care. When was the last one?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ern 14y ago
People don't die or get harmed when some social-messaging application spams someone. I disagree. This case reminds me of Geni. You would put a relative's email address in to invite them, and they'd then receive a torrent of spammy "updates", until they registered to unsubscribe. My less tech-savvy father added many relatives from his address book to Geni. Lots of hate from deranged relatives, and some less technically-inclined relatives are probably still being spammed, 6 years later-it made family gatherings awkward for a while. There are real-world, harmful consequences to this kind of scummy, unethical tactic.
Shish2k 14y ago
> People don't die or get harmed when some social-messaging application spams someone http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8284279/bw.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8284...
huckleberries21 14y ago
This response assumes that joining all social networks is user choice. Unfortunately, we live in a world where it hurts consumers NOT to be on some networks. LinkedIn (which also has had a history of horrible spamming in the past) is an example - sure, you can choose not to be on it, but you'll probably get dinged by hiring managers because your credentials somehow seem less legitimate if not corroborated by LinkedIn.

by mjolk 14y ago

darxius 14y ago

I disagree. As a computer engineer in Canada, I must swear by the Code of Ethics because what I do (or potentially don't do) can cause harm. Ethics in computer-science-related fields are important and I think we do need a set of rules we can dogmatically follow like the Hippocratic Oath. Of course, the HO is different in that failing to follow can cause physical harm. However, the world is progressing quickly and more and more information is hosted online -- personal information. I think it's our jobs to make sure we don't promote poor practice and un-ethical behaviour.

nnnnni 14y ago
So you wear the ring then, eh?
- darxius 14y ago
  Soon :) I'm just entering my final year of study.
  - nnnnni 14y ago
    I'm not sure where you are, but... be sure to wear a lot of layers of clothes with at least one all-black layer on the finals day. Seriously. I hope that you'll see this in time!
smsm42 14y ago
So in Canada, software engineers never cause harm to anyone? Nice to know. >>>> I think we do need a set of rules we can dogmatically follow like the Hippocratic Oath. So you don't actually have to employ your own brain and your own moral judgement, because somebody already did it for you and wrote this nice set of rules, that you swore by Apollo to faithfully execute, without thinking, not unlike that box of wires and silicon chips you are paid to play with? Nice arrangement, I suppose. >>>> I think it's our jobs to make sure we don't promote poor practice and un-ethical behaviour. And you need to sign an explicit oath to do that?
- darxius 14y ago
  I think you're missing the point. The oath is to remind you to use your head, your best judgement and a body of ethics and to act in the interest of the public. Sure engineers still make mistakes, but the code of ethics isn't some magical document that eliminated human error. Also, I think you're sort of merging the HO with the Code of Ethics for engineers in Canada -- two very different documents and I suggest you give them a read. And no, no one still thinks they're swearing to Apollo.
  - smsm42 14y ago
    >>>> The oath is to remind you to use your head, your best judgement and a body of ethics Why you need an oath for that - shouldn't it be always the default behavior? >>>> and to act in the interest of the public. "Interest of the public" is a very dangerous thing. I can remember a lot of very bad things that were done "in the interest of the public". You can make almost anything pass as "in the interest of the public" if you want to. Murder? Millions were murdered "in the interest of the public", because they were of the wrong ethnicity, class, physical features or just in the wrong place in the wrong time. Robbery? Millions were stripped of their property and reduced to utter poverty because it was claimed it is "interest of the public" to do so. And so on, and so forth. I would rather steer clear of anything that has "interest of the public" written on it, at least until it's very clear what is underneath. Too many things that were underneath such writing proved to be a disaster. >>> no one still thinks they're swearing to Apollo. Swearing to a document composed by a faceless bureaucracy is no better. If you have code of ethics, live by it, if you do not - get one. What Apollo or his modern equivalent, the almighty bureaucracy, has to do with it?
mjolk 14y ago
>I think it's our jobs to make sure we don't promote poor practice and un-ethical behaviour. No, it's our responsibility as decent people. I don't need to sign some online pledge to keep myself from pushing people in front of trains. If I was the sort to harm others, why would I care about some meaningless online campaign?
- darxius 14y ago
  There's nothing to sign and it's not a campaign. You're right, it is our responsibility as decent people to uphold a certain level of moral and ethical behaviour, especially when the software we write is in control of sensitive information. The Oath is there to remind you to act in the best interest of the user. There are no formalities and although it seems common sense to people like you and me, others might not see it so clearly.
- tripzilch 14y ago
  > I don't need to sign some online pledge to keep myself from pushing people in front of trains. Neither do doctors really need the Oath of Hippocrates to stop themselves from harming people.
  - mpyne 14y ago
    Which is convenient, because the Oath of Hippocrates has not actually stopped doctors from harming people.
- freshhawk 14y ago
  "No, it's our responsibility as decent people" Well, yes. But there is a reason that every profession that has tackled this problem has used a system of oaths and certification. Engineers, Doctors and Lawyers are the canonical examples. You need something that is given and can be taken away for bad behaviour in order to change behaviour at this level. Damn human brains.
  - pekk 14y ago
    Taken away by whom and on what basis? I would dispute that you need the ability to take away other individuals' ability to lawfully write software. That ability is bound to be abused for political reasons (which is also what it looks like when people have reasonably different ethical systems and one imposes his by force). Anyway, the issue at hand is bad corporate behavior, not bad programmers. I don't see why we need to start licking our chops about the prospect of forming a blacklist against individual programmers.

gjm11 14y ago

> People don't die or get harmed when some social-messaging application spams someone. Of course they get harmed: their time is wasted, and perhaps their concentration disturbed. This is a small harm to each victim, no doubt about it, but if you write code that makes your social-messaging application spam people then you're delivering that small harm to a large number of people. If your code wastes 10 seconds each, just once, for a million people, that's about three person-months of aggregate time you've stolen that will never come back. It's quite true that "in social networking, your personal data what the company uses to make a profit". But if it were near-universal practice for new software engineers to swear a solemn oath not to use their powers for evil, who knows? perhaps some other business model for social networking might have had a chance to succeed.

disgruntledphd2 14y ago
Its also true that in search, your personal data is what the company uses to make a profit. And yet, one hears less complaints about that. I'm not justifying either approach, by the way, just observing what I regard as a strange disconnect.

nollidge 14y ago

Of course people get harmed. The harm just has vastly less depth and vastly more breadth.

angersock 14y ago

You really come off as an amoral jerk here. What happens if an app for job seekers texts your boss? What if a casual hookup site texts your new girlfriend--even though you signed up a year before meeting her? What happens if your app calls an old person and they crack a hip trying to answer a phone--when everyone that knows them personally knows not to call until they're awake and their caretaker is in? These may sound far-fetched, and we all mostly don't pretend we're as disciplined as structural engineers, but "we do it for the money lulz" is a shitty and stupid argument.

mjolk 14y ago
>You really come off as an amoral jerk here. I'm okay with this. I'd rather be calculating than have my head in the sand about the business models of social networking what-have-you applications. >What if a casual hookup site texts your new girlfriend--even though you signed up a year before meeting her? While I don't and won't have to experience this, your imagined relationship suffers more from lack of trust and honesty than "some dumb app does some dumb, annoying thing." >"we do it for the money lulz" is a shitty and stupid argument. Don't Straw Man me. If my code was going to be used for something I perceive as evil, I'd leave the job. Our industry doesn't need yet another pointless, embarrassing ethics/integrity campaign when the people writing the code don't care.
- saraid216 14y ago
  > Our industry doesn't need yet another pointless, embarrassing ethics/integrity campaign when the people writing the code don't care. When was the last one?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

ern 14y ago

People don't die or get harmed when some social-messaging application spams someone. I disagree. This case reminds me of Geni. You would put a relative's email address in to invite them, and they'd then receive a torrent of spammy "updates", until they registered to unsubscribe. My less tech-savvy father added many relatives from his address book to Geni. Lots of hate from deranged relatives, and some less technically-inclined relatives are probably still being spammed, 6 years later-it made family gatherings awkward for a while. There are real-world, harmful consequences to this kind of scummy, unethical tactic.

Shish2k 14y ago

> People don't die or get harmed when some social-messaging application spams someone http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8284279/bw.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8284...

huckleberries21 14y ago

This response assumes that joining all social networks is user choice. Unfortunately, we live in a world where it hurts consumers NOT to be on some networks. LinkedIn (which also has had a history of horrible spamming in the past) is an example - sure, you can choose not to be on it, but you'll probably get dinged by hiring managers because your credentials somehow seem less legitimate if not corroborated by LinkedIn.