I think it's a dubious waste of time, because forcing people to take ethics classes wouldn't meant that they are going to stick to the proposed ethics. I've took ethics class in my Uni back in the day because I was curious what it was about and it also was a fairly easy one to pass. The prof was nice and informative, but her conclusions were something I would disagree with all the time, and I left the course only with knowledge of some historical stuff, but none of my views on what's ethical and what's not had not been changed. If anything I only got to solidify my position based on facts provided by her. Unless people would adopt these ethics willfully there is no forcing them to.
New ethics courses in computer science
61–70 of 156 posts
Re: New ethics courses in computer science
#62I tend to tune out every time a journalist cites the main problem with "the dark side of tech" as "fake news".
Firstly, it's devolved into a term to play upon the confirmation bias of people who think those who hold a different opinion than them did not arrive there out of differing life experience, but because they must be either stupid or evil.
Secondly, there are many dark sides of tech that are of greater importance than what is usually a subjective assessment that news is fake; such as unfettered personal data mining, engineered addictiveness, cooperation with oppressive governments, and growing soft-censorship of users whose politics differ from that of major platforms' operators.
Re: New ethics courses in computer science
#63Such a good opening line, "The medical profession has an ethic: First, do no harm. Silicon Valley has an ethos: Build it first and ask for forgiveness later."
"The medical profession has an ethic: First, do no harm.."
I always liked that "do no harm" statement. Notice how it seems to imply "do only good" but it doesn't. Clever.
Re: New ethics courses in computer science
#64I like their goals, but the traditional academic implementation described in the article and in the syllabus the article linked to won't achieve them. If you want people to learn behavior, you can't lecture them into it, nor will talking about case studies or writing papers help. Look at the behavior those classes teach: analysis, reading, writing, debating other people's behavior. Active, experiential, project-based…
This is very much like the gender imbalance in tech - starting to address it in college only provides a band-aid. This is a much deeper issue that starts soon after birth. As a CMU grad student they had the Reasonable Person Principle to help guide your actions and interactions. The principle states nothing about ethics, but generally that you should be open to others' concerns, practice self-reflection, and even acc…
The Reasonable Person Principle was the best thing I learned from CMU
* Everyone will be reasonable.
* Everyone expects everyone else to be reasonable.
* No one is special.
* Do not be offended if someone suggests you are not being reasonable
Re: New ethics courses in computer science
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah but both of those are just marketing postures that don’t really have anything to do with the underlying realities of their respective industries.
It's necessary to establish a policy before you can enforce it. You can't argue about exceptions if you don't fundamentally support the legitimacy of the policy, either. "First, do no harm" is a policy statement. Once you accept it, you can make arguments about tradeoffs (pain management, amputation, chemotherapy, abortion), but without having a policy statement, there's no argument being made, just a free-for-all me…
> without having a policy statement, there's no argument being made, just a free-for-all mess.
Given that medical treatments are the second or third leading cause of death in the U.S., how much good is the policy statement really doing?
Re: New ethics courses in computer science
#66I like their goals, but the traditional academic implementation described in the article and in the syllabus the article linked to won't achieve them. If you want people to learn behavior, you can't lecture them into it, nor will talking about case studies or writing papers help. Look at the behavior those classes teach: analysis, reading, writing, debating other people's behavior. Active, experiential, project-based…
This is very much like the gender imbalance in tech - starting to address it in college only provides a band-aid. This is a much deeper issue that starts soon after birth. As a CMU grad student they had the Reasonable Person Principle to help guide your actions and interactions. The principle states nothing about ethics, but generally that you should be open to others' concerns, practice self-reflection, and even acc…
Soon after birth? Partly, but this is a much deeper issue that starts soon after conception. Actually scratch that, it started soon after sexual reproduction and therefore sexual selection was introduced about a billion years ago.
Re: New ethics courses in computer science
#67I grew tired of arguments supporting fleecing the users that were basically "We aren't making them do this, they choose to do it." I have heard them put forward at nearly every company I've worked at, at various levels and through various departments. At Google it was always "We don't take an editorial stand, this might be just what some of our customers want." That has been the most interesting aspect of their recen…
>if we forced some liability on companies for what the software they sell does, that would change a lot of things fairly quickly.
Absolutely that would change things, especially the cost of software.
Re: New ethics courses in computer science
#68I grew tired of arguments supporting fleecing the users that were basically "We aren't making them do this, they choose to do it." I have heard them put forward at nearly every company I've worked at, at various levels and through various departments. At Google it was always "We don't take an editorial stand, this might be just what some of our customers want." That has been the most interesting aspect of their recen…
All it takes for a 22 year old to write invasive ad tracking code, VPNs that spy on users, deceptive interfaces that steal tips or addict users, is around $150k combined compensation.
Can we stop pretending we (~tech/software) are superior to other industries? We are as bad if not worse then finance, big oil, etc.
Re: New ethics courses in computer science
#69I grew tired of arguments supporting fleecing the users that were basically "We aren't making them do this, they choose to do it." I have heard them put forward at nearly every company I've worked at, at various levels and through various departments. At Google it was always "We don't take an editorial stand, this might be just what some of our customers want." That has been the most interesting aspect of their recen…
Indeed, there is a problem with the "they choose to do it" argument: namely that if enough clueless people around you choose something that you don't want, the choice may be foisted upon you by social forces.
Re: New ethics courses in computer science
#70I attended the ARinAction summit earlier this month, and heard an interesting tidbit from the MIT Media Lab's Pattie Maes: She requires new students joining her program to watch Black Mirror (1).
In contrast, when I attended business school one of the models held up to us in the very first week was the team at Harrah's who designed a loyalty program for frequent gamblers (2). I remember one of the professors or someone in a video interview we watched crowing, "it was like printing money."
Neither the case nor the instructor had anything to say about the fact that this was basically a technology-driven scheme to extract as much money as possible from members of the public, including gambling addicts and other vulnerable populations. The "big question" at the conclusion of the case reads:
When asked about the company’s long-term vision for its RM system, a member of Harrah’s RM team became thoughtful for a moment. He responded that, while all of the near and longer-term developments described above were critical, he thought there was one important aspect of all RM systems that needed further development. "What I’d really like to know — and I pose this as a question for researchers in revenue management — is how to integrate information about price elasticity into these systems. Clearly, changes in price affect the level of demand we experience. However, none of the systems we are familiar with capture this effect."
1. https://theoutline.com/post/3167/black-mirror-mit-class?zd=4...
2. https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/pdf/10.1287/ited.1090.003...