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New ethics courses in computer science

nytimes.com

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Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#111

Post by throwawayjava »

batmansmk wrote: post #82
ChuckMcM wrote: post #49

I 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…

I signed one oath in my engineering school in France to get my degree. I loose my title if I'm caught not respecting it. The title gives me access to a few jobs that require it (state, secret services, C-level of a few companies) as well as a special tax cut for companies using employees with the title.

> as well as a special tax cut for companies using employees with the title.

This is an interesting point in-between zero intervention and over-bearing puritanism codified in law. I'm having trouble finding more information. Could you share a link?

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#112

Post by lovich »

kbenson wrote: post #71
ChuckMcM wrote: post #49

I 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…

> At Google it was always "We don't take an editorial stand, this might be just what some of our customers want." It's an interesting choice for companies, and Google in particular. Either be proactive and get accused of forcing your customers behavior or having ulterior motives based on money (e.g. Google's ad blocking program), or let them do what they want and get accused of turning a blind eye because it makes mo…

I've worked in that industry as well and I have a very negative view of it still, even discounting the bad actors. Everything you do can be above board and still be douchey

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#114

Post by throwawayjava »

kbenson wrote: post #107
mulmen wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, what value does your ticket brokerage create?

For customers, liquidity and price accuracy, ticket availability, and the chance for discount tickets (in the case where brokers make a bad call or execute badly, which happens often). For venues and promoters, guaranteed attendance and immediate cashflow (sell 50,000 tickets at an average of $80 immediately instead of spread over 9-12 months, that's money that can be invested back into their business or something el…

Engineering ethics takes two forms: "what should I build" and "how should I build it".

I tend to prefer "engineering ethics" courses that focus on the second question because the first question is completely parametric in more general ethical and even political considerations.

It's true that engineers should take a course of study in pure ethics to learn how to think through questions of the first variety, but I'm not sure if engineering departments are the right ones to house/teach that particular course.

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#115

Post by jakelazaroff »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #92
jakelazaroff wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Absolutely that would change things, especially the cost of software. In other words: the current cost of software is artificially low because companies treat users unethically.

It's also artificially high for the same reasons. I would posit that prices are artificially high in more cases.

Are you saying that the cost of software is artificially high because companies are unethical?

That doesn't really make sense: consumers value both price and ethics, and are often willing to pay a premium to companies they perceive as more ethical. If a company could come up with a product that's both cheaper and more ethical than their competitors', they'd easily win over all their competitors' customers.

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#116

Post by kerkeslager »

KirinDave wrote: post #22
purple-again wrote: post #4

Always a losers game. You implement it with ethics in mind, I do not. I win and you fall into obscurity. The law is all that matters. If I can not lose what I take, there is no reason for me not to take it (so long as I'm still chasing the 'fuck you money', morals are great after you have it). I understand it, lots of people have dreamed big dreams of how great the world would be if everyone else was just like them t…

Flip side of this: People who say this are usually folks trying to justify the fact that they're resorting to underhanded, abusive tactics to compete with talented, successful people who are not. It is the battle cry of the mediocre, the hallmark of scammers, the ultimate admission of the untalented and unworthy. I know a lot of folks in fintech and blockchain, and we've all skated the outer edge of what's defined by…

> Those are the folks who are still around. Even big US national banks, notorious for their immunity to law and enforcement, are starting to feel the pressure. Rumor is, Customers left Wells Fargo in droves after the last kerfuffle and new account opening went down substantially at Citi after their money laundering fine. The hidden cost of bad optics is immense.

There are two parts to a cost/benefit analysis, and you're only talking about the cost part of unethical behavior, as if the benefit doesn't exist. With Wells Fargo, Citi, Experian, Bank of America, etc., when their scandals went down, did they lose more money in the scandals than they gained from their antisocial behavior? I haven't tracked all of these cases til their end, but at least with Wells Fargo, they did not.

More importantly, did the individuals who made the antisocial decisions, who are protected by limited liability, lose money? I doubt it. Maybe they're not "still around", but they're happily retired in mansions and there are plenty of newcomers willing to do the same thing to get the same reward.

It's not 100% of the time: there are cases when bad behavior actually results in a net loss. But I'd say these are anomalies and not the norm. And even if they weren't, antisocial behaviors are profitable enough of the time that some percentage of antisocial behaviors have a positive expected value when looked at probabilistically.

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#117

Post by thomastjeffery »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #115
thomastjeffery wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also artificially high for the same reasons. I would posit that prices are artificially high in more cases.

Are you saying that the cost of software is artificially high because companies are unethical? That doesn't really make sense: consumers value both price and ethics, and are often willing to pay a premium to companies they perceive as more ethical. If a company could come up with a product that's both cheaper and more ethical than their competitors', they'd easily win over all their competitors' customers.

It depends where you look, and what you consider to be unethical.

One example is the game Battlefield 4: Dice/EA does not release the server software, so in order to host a server, you must rent one.

This means that only those who have a private deal with the company can host servers, leaving people in places like west Africa underserved (no servers under 100-200ms), and giving those who pay to host servers unneccessary authority over players (arbitrary rules, reserved slots, etc.).

This creates an artifical market based on copyright, and allows Dice/EA to get more money by abusing their customers.

> That doesn't really make sense: consumers value both price and ethics, and are often willing to pay a premium to companies they perceive as more ethical.

Perception is not reality. One problem is that people have been trained via propaganda to respect copyright abuses like DRM.

Because there are enough people respecting these abuses, I am forced to accept the abuses as status-quo.

There are plenty of other cases where a company constrains their customers liberty in order to coerce them into paying more. It's a problem that is exasperated by blind anti-regulation policies and setting monetary increase as the ultimate goal and ethos.

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#119

Post by fvdessen »

nostrademons wrote: post #46
nemild wrote: post #11

If useful, I wrote my own thoughts on ethics in software, after reflecting on certain experiences over the years: > A serial tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley once asked me to design a “social stockade” for his financial services customers. It would lock people out of their social media accounts and tweet out/FB share to their friends when they hadn’t paid a loan. He pitched it to prospective employees as meaningfu…

Interestingly, many microfinance programs that are widely heralded as having lifted many people out of poverty (eg. Grameen Bank, CARE) rely heavily on peer pressure to boost their repayment rates. They lend out to groups within a village, and then if any one member of the group fails to repay the loan, the group can't access more capital. This creates a strong incentive for other members of the group to exert social…

I know of a microfinance company that hires former convicts to reclaim payments and receives government subsidies for it as part of a social reinsertion program.

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#120

Post by hueving »

dragonwriter wrote: post #37
hueving wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using technology != technologist in this context. Calling a doctor a technologist essentially makes everyone a technologist and the term becomes meaningless.

You are welcome to pose a definition of technologist that included the people you mean to include and excluded the people you mean to exclude, but by any coherent definition doctors are as much technologists as IT workers in general, though I can see some reasonable definitions that would exclude most of both and only include a few of either. But, in any case, the lack of formal ethical rules applicable to IT is not…

Just Google it, I don't need to propose anything.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/technologist

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