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Don't Be Evil: Utopias, Frontiers, and Brogrammers

logicmag.io

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Re: Don't Be Evil: Utopias, Frontiers, and Brogrammers

#21

Post by pavlov »

Animats wrote: post #17

He's completely missed what changed everything - advertising-supported services. Before Google/Doubleclick, computing was about selling hardware, software, and service to people who used them. After Google bought Doubleclick, computing became about selling users to advertisers. The user is the product, not the customer. This totally changed the balance of power. It's really a bit late to be worried about 1960s counte…

This a million times.

It's not a coincidence that the focus in UI design also shifted at the same time, in the post-dotcom-bubble years.

Software user interfaces used to be designed for users. Desktop software didn't try to make you send an endless stream of personal data and content to the vendor, or trick you into using it again as soon as possible.

Today's software is designed with an advertising mentality. Instead of customers and human interface guidelines, there are eyeballs and creatives. Previously it would have been a scandal if a software package sent all your keypresses to the vendor's server, but today everything is tracked and monitored. Most designers don't give a shit about things like accessibility because they fundamentally understand software as something more akin to a billboard or centerfold ad.

Meanwhile usage of the word "product" creeps to replace "software". To me, it strongly carries the connotation that consumer-facing software design is turning into the process of developing ways to surreptitiously extract value from the user.

Re: Don't Be Evil: Utopias, Frontiers, and Brogrammers

#23

Post by gaius »

Animats wrote: post #17

He's completely missed what changed everything - advertising-supported services. Before Google/Doubleclick, computing was about selling hardware, software, and service to people who used them. After Google bought Doubleclick, computing became about selling users to advertisers. The user is the product, not the customer. This totally changed the balance of power. It's really a bit late to be worried about 1960s counte…

It's really a bit late to be worried about 1960s

Indeed. He comes across like a former hippie trying to stay relevant. It’s not Kennedy but McCarthy who defines Silly Valley culture.

Re: Don't Be Evil: Utopias, Frontiers, and Brogrammers

#24

Post by patkai »

engnr567 wrote: post #14
MrL567 wrote: post #5

The lines about engineers I find to be odd. I don't believe that an entire culture could think that way, yet the author states that the news is a out of context problem for these firms. Engineers don't actually think like that as this article claims it to be, right?

Based on my limited experience, most of the good engineers I know measure and care about quantifiable things like latency, throughput etc. They generally tend to get frustrated with fuzzy things like accuracy. (Data) Scientists, on the other hand, seem to be much more happier dealing with things like accuracy. "Ethicalness", however, nobody seems to care about measuring.

> "Ethicalness", however, nobody seems to care about measuring.

I would add that it is not entirely their job. After all, all the stakeholders have a primary goal, the infrastructure engineer will maximise infrastructure metrics, the VC their own and so do regulators, who society does need, even in our angelic brogrammer society.

Re: Don't Be Evil: Utopias, Frontiers, and Brogrammers

#25

Post by emacsgifs »

coldtea wrote: post #18
emacsgifs wrote: post #6

This is one of the more insightful and interesting reads posted on HN. I took issue with the statement that Apple have always cynically coopted counterculture and utopian motifs. Then I thought about it for a second. Getting people pumped up about Apple using utopian imagery and counterculture suggestions was always cynical. It just happened to work very effectively on me in the 80s, and may very well have fuelled a…

> Obviously Steve had already exploited and cheated Woz on a number of occasions before the formative Mac 1984 Ads (which made a deep impression on me at the time.) So it's not that much of a reach to say they are somewhat cynical. Sure, but do you know how many bona fide members of the counterculture themselves exploited and back-stabbed others, especially for petty power politics and fame/recognition? It's not like…

> do you know how many bona fide members of the counterculture themselves exploited and back-stabbed others, especially for petty power politics and fame/recognition?

I do, and fair point.

> It's some particular Americanism (or protestantism relic?) to believe agents of change, national heroes, great historic figures etc, must also be good, altruistic and warm people

I don't think it's a Protestant relic, it's more of a general simplistic perspective that there are through and through good people.

But still I agree it's unrealistic to think this way.

Re: Don't Be Evil: Utopias, Frontiers, and Brogrammers

#26

Post by yorwba »

coldtea wrote: post #20
yorwba wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never the infrastructure or the algorithm or the data that is political. It's the people using that infrastructure, algorithm or data in their decision-making who are responsible. When a machine learning model determines that according to the available data, blacks are more likely to default on loans, it's not unfairly biased against blacks. It is merely reflecting that the world is unfairly biased against black…

> It's never the infrastructure or the algorithm or the data that is political. It's the people using that infrastructure, algorithm or data in their decision-making who are responsible. I don't believe that. In a sense, it's like the classic NRA defense, that guns don't kill people, etc. In reality, certain technologies also come with specific tendencies -- ascribed in their very design and formulation. In the very…

Yes, guns don't kill people without pulling the trigger. That doesn't mean that everyone else is without responsibility. Obviously there would be no guns to shoot if nobody sold them. There would be no guns to sell if nobody made them. And so on.

I didn't mean to put all the blame on the users of the infrastructure. Actually I was thinking about the case where the user is involved in creating the infrastructure in the first place, and then pulls the "It's an algorithm!" excuse.

If the infrastructure is made available for someone else to use, then part of the blame for abuse also lies with the person who decided to let them use it. But even in that case it's not the infrastructure that is the problem, it is the lack of access control and accountability.

Re: Don't Be Evil: Utopias, Frontiers, and Brogrammers

#27

Post by [deleted] »

emacsgifs wrote: post #6

This is one of the more insightful and interesting reads posted on HN. I took issue with the statement that Apple have always cynically coopted counterculture and utopian motifs. Then I thought about it for a second. Getting people pumped up about Apple using utopian imagery and counterculture suggestions was always cynical. It just happened to work very effectively on me in the 80s, and may very well have fuelled a…

[deleted]

Re: Don't Be Evil: Utopias, Frontiers, and Brogrammers

#28

Post by jakubp »

wsc981 wrote: post #8
emacsgifs wrote: post #6

This is one of the more insightful and interesting reads posted on HN. I took issue with the statement that Apple have always cynically coopted counterculture and utopian motifs. Then I thought about it for a second. Getting people pumped up about Apple using utopian imagery and counterculture suggestions was always cynical. It just happened to work very effectively on me in the 80s, and may very well have fuelled a…

From what I have read, there are quite a few people (including Woz) that recognize that Steve Jobs was still a great man, despite the way how he treated people sometimes. Steve Jobs was very charismatic and often it’s charismatic people that lead the charge. One can be an agent of change and a tech god, while also being a piece of work. The one doesn’t exclude the other. Einstein treated his wife quite horrible as we…

I wouldn't call a man who cheats close friends/partners and treats others badly a great man.

Re: Don't Be Evil: Utopias, Frontiers, and Brogrammers

#29

Post by viridian »

matt4077 wrote: post #11
ivanbakel wrote: post #2

The "anti-political" part is probably the most pertinent to modern tech thought. People repeat it here as well - the idea that any kind of specification or statistic is just cold and hard, and there are no lenses. What I wonder more is: is it a product of the "build it" mentality like Turner says, or is it manipulated by money men with an interest is maintaining the status quo by silencing dissent as non-scientific?

In my experience, engineers tend to fetishise the sciences to a degree even scientists don't. Physics and math are among the most influential, and their biggest successes were build on reductionism , or the ability to split large problems into smaller, manageable units. The first instinct is not to immediately solve a problem, but to reduce its size. They also seek axioms, i.e. simple, universal truths from which to…

I think it comes from not really having a grasp of a lot of the real BS involved in science, which you can really only know from first or secondhand experience. A lot of the magic and awe I found in science was beaten out of me by having close friends and partners who were lab techs, doctoral students, postdocs, etc.

I really hope knowledge of how the scientific process works in practice becomes more common among engineers though, it's very frustrating when someone takes a study as being the word of god, and you can't convince them otherwise, because science. Like some 3-4 years ago there was some lab claiming to be on the cusp of having a real cold fusion prototype, and people just buy in because they want it to be true, and the lab had written a paper.

Re: Don't Be Evil: Utopias, Frontiers, and Brogrammers

#30

Post by michaelt »

yorwba wrote: post #13
matt4077 wrote: post #9

"Infrastructure is not political" is part of the canon here on HN as well. Bitcoin, as one of many examples, is often touted as being "neutral", or "unbiased" (in comparison to the Federal Reserve's monetary policy). The same sort of argument is gaining steam around discriminatory decisions by AI or "Big Data" systems: "It's an algorithm! It cannot be biased. Technology is neutral!"

It's never the infrastructure or the algorithm or the data that is political. It's the people using that infrastructure, algorithm or data in their decision-making who are responsible. When a machine learning model determines that according to the available data, blacks are more likely to default on loans, it's not unfairly biased against blacks. It is merely reflecting that the world is unfairly biased against black…

Consider the impact of the machine gun on warfare. Huge impact - and once it existed, armies either got them or lost to enemies who had them.

We could attribute that impact to:

1. Military leaders - but their hands were forced, their only choice was to deploy machine guns or see their troops mown down by them.

2. Gun inventors - but surely if Richard Gatling hadn't invented the Gatling Gun, someone else would have. It was an idea whose time has come.

3. "The system" - but isn't that an unsatisfying cop-out? Doesn't this let the above claim rewards for the upsides of their choices while disclaiming responsibility for the downsides, and by so doing creating perverse incentives?

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