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New ethics courses in computer science

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Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#141

Post by justin66 »

nemild wrote: post #137
justin66 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, the easiest way to cut the price of loans down would be to kill anyone if they didn't pay; defaults — and loan costs — would fall dramatically. You state that as a hypothetical, but it's not like this has never been tried. The loans handled by lenders who include the threat of violence in the repayment plan are absolutely not characterized by low costs.

But loans for these activities (such as a loanshark) have their own set of risks that have to be factored in and affect the interest rate: - You may have no legal recourse and no collateral to seize - The loan may be funding risky or illegal activity with a high likelihood of failure, which demands a higher interest rate - There may be no competition that drives the price down Ceteris paribus, increasing the cost of…

Introducing the threat of violence isn't smoothly adjusting a variable in a formula. It's introducing a gating factor that's going to keep not-desperate people from dealing with you.

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#142

Post by dang »

evanlivingston wrote: post #28
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…

I don't want people like you in the world.

Please don't respond to a bad comment with another bad comment. That just makes this place worse, and usually provokes others into worse yet, which is why the site guidelines ask you not to do it: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#143

Post by [deleted] »

peoplewindow wrote: post #36
taurath wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people come up with all sorts of justifications for why what they’re doing isn’t wrong. Concerted effort to knock down those justifications and socially shame those that cling to them does work - consider all the people who don’t want to go work for an ad company or a defense contractor, or those who leave with one of the reasons being to escape the industry that they know is wrong.

I think the opposite - people come up with all sorts of justifications for why what other people are doing is wrong . This lets them feel self satisfied, virtuous and perhaps a little smug effectively for free, and if their position is perhaps a little thinly thought out, well, no big deal, it's not like anyone is going to listen anyway. I've watched many attempts to tar entire industries as evil over the years. Inva…

[deleted]

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#144

Post by kerkeslager »

KirinDave wrote: post #129
kerkeslager wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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? Wells: Yes, almost certainly. Citi: Good question. Every I've talked to from Citi seems to think it was a disaster that hurt the business bottom line. BofA: Not sure which BofA problem we're talking about here. Experian: They walked away. T…

Keep in mind the chain of comments you're responding to started with:

> [I]f we forced some liability on companies for what the software they sell does, that would change a lot of things fairly quickly.

In that context, it sounds like you're saying we don't need liability regulation, we need data science to help consumers make better decisions, so that the economic downsides to antisocial action are higher.

This is the repeated lie of laissez faire economics: that if we can just get consumers to become savvy they will stop giving money to bad actors and the invisible hand of the market will enforce ethics without having to resort to regulation.

This has never worked. At best, regulation finally steps in after the companies have trashed people's lives and fines the company, and the people who made the decisions are forced to retire with their millions. At worst, the companies lobby successfully and their sociopathic business practices become not only the norm but the standard. Laissez faire economics is typically only espoused by businesses when they don't have the regulators in their pocket.

Forgive my cynicism, but I don't think data science is the missing piece that makes laissez faire economics work. It's simply not realistic to believe that the average consumer will become knowledgeable enough to make ethical decisions on what they consume. Most people aren't savvy enough, don't care, or don't have the time. I like to think I understand most issues once I have the data, and I care, but I simply can't keep up with all the different companies and their misdeeds. The invisible hand of the market simply can't keep up with this problem.

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#145

Post by Zak »

MereInterest wrote: post #104
zombieprocesses wrote: post #86

We already have ethics in the philosophy department. I'm was CS major and I took ethics and liked it so much I double majored in CS and philosophy. Ethics has no place in CS, nor more than ethics is required in biology or physics or algebra. If universities want students to learn about ethics, then make ethics 101 a "required elective".

Your comparisons are rather odd, given that most universities do have ethics requirements for the sciences, focused on examples from the field in question. Biology: Do not repeat the Tuskegee experiements. Do not be the next Andrew Wakefield. Physics: Do not falsify data. Do not plagiarize results. Do not play fast and loose with statistics. I can definitely see corresponding examples being made for issues that affec…

The examples from other fields offered here relate purely to the academic field, while one of your CS examples is very much related to software as a business.

Biology as a business: don't try to patent the world's food supply.

Physics as a business: consider whether your client is building a weapon out of your work and whom they might use it against.

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#146

Post by KirinDave »

kerkeslager wrote: post #144
KirinDave wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? Wells: Yes, almost certainly. Citi: Good question. Every I've talked to from Citi seems to think it was a disaster that hurt the business bottom line. BofA: Not sure which BofA problem we're talking about here. Experian: They walked away. T…

Keep in mind the chain of comments you're responding to started with: > [I]f we forced some liability on companies for what the software they sell does, that would change a lot of things fairly quickly. In that context, it sounds like you're saying we don't need liability regulation, we need data science to help consumers make better decisions, so that the economic downsides to antisocial action are higher. This is t…

> In that context, it sounds like you're saying we don't need liability regulation, we need data science to help consumers make better decisions, so that the economic downsides to antisocial action are higher.

I'm not sure why you make it sound like an decision. We're already seeing that improved computing power and statistical methods, coupled with the falling costs of these, are giving us transparency which can guide both consumers and regulators.

Its one of the reasons I'm a fan of "legible" societies once the asymmetry if power and information is overcome. We can all hold each other accountable.

If you check my comment history you'll see I'm a big fan of the CFPB and generally want the government to make bad behavior more expensive, so I appreciate the rest if your post but you're preaching to the choir. I'm furious at what the Executive has done putting a scam artist at the wheel to dismantle it.

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#147

Post by nemild »

justin66 wrote: post #141
nemild wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But loans for these activities (such as a loanshark) have their own set of risks that have to be factored in and affect the interest rate: - You may have no legal recourse and no collateral to seize - The loan may be funding risky or illegal activity with a high likelihood of failure, which demands a higher interest rate - There may be no competition that drives the price down Ceteris paribus, increasing the cost of…

Introducing the threat of violence isn't smoothly adjusting a variable in a formula. It's introducing a gating factor that's going to keep not-desperate people from dealing with you.

I'm happy to discuss with you offline (see my profile). The point I'm trying to make is that increasing the ability for greater enforcement mechanisms, should — on average — reduce the cost of loans. As I point out, there are real debates about where to draw the line about what is appropriate lender enforcement that I've personally struggled with.

I apologize that my example isn't perfect, and you're absolutely right, there is selection bias, unless there is little recourse for other products.

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#148

Post by logicallee »

kbenson wrote: post #140
logicallee wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I work in the event ticketing secondary markets. That is, I work for a brokerage and buys and sells event tickets for a profit. FYI you work for a ticket scalping shop, which is why you put so much verbiage there rather than saying so. Based on what you've written, it's not clear what your firm adds to the world through its analytics and "investment". Which is why people don't like scalpers. Other than the scalpers,…

> Based on what you've written, it's not clear what your firm adds to the world through its analytics and "investment". Perhaps if you read the thread a bit more, you would have found my answers to these questions, and you could formulate useful questions that didn't ask for things that have already been provided. If you would like to follow up to that comment with questions or complaints about how I've presented mys…

The other comment by lovich says:

>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.

As far as your points, I have this specific question:

- Where you write, "For venues and promoters, guaranteed attendance and immediate cashflow."

Why is there "guaranteed attendance"? I don't understand what you could have meant by it.

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#149

Post by kbenson »

logicallee wrote: post #148
kbenson wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Based on what you've written, it's not clear what your firm adds to the world through its analytics and "investment". Perhaps if you read the thread a bit more, you would have found my answers to these questions, and you could formulate useful questions that didn't ask for things that have already been provided. If you would like to follow up to that comment with questions or complaints about how I've presented mys…

The other comment by lovich says: >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. As far as your points, I have this specific question: - Where you write, "For venues and promoters, guaranteed attendance and immediate cashflow." Why is there "guaranteed attendance"? I don't understand what yo…

> - Where you write, "For venues and promoters, guaranteed attendance and immediate cashflow."

> Why is there "guaranteed attendance"? I don't understand what you could have meant by it.

That's an inaccurate description on my part for what I meant. It's not guaranteed attendance, it's guaranteed sales regardless of attendance (although generally the seats are sold, even if at an extreme discount). It's guaranteed money available early on in the event lifetime.

For an example of this, look at this TicketMaster event[1], and the corresponding StubHub page. All reserved seating is $45 on TM, and there's still plenty of tickets available, and the floor tickets are $49.50, and they are still available as well. Now look at the secondary market (StubHub, in this example), and you'll see Floor seats starting at $19, Orchestra seats starting at just under $30, Lower Balcony seats starting at under $11, and Upper Balcony at $29 (I'm not sure why it's higher, I suspect this market isn't very liquid, and/or those are mostly non-brokers selling expecting to get more money back than is likely to happen).

I have a few take-aways from this specific example (and it's by no means my job to make these assessments, I'm a software engineer, I write in-house tools and connect to APIs):

- People expecting to make money on the secondary market here are losing a lot of money. Exchange fees are generally between 7-10% of sale price for brokers, depending on volume, and TicketMaster initial display prices generally are not including all the other fees. A single Floor ticket (listed as $49.50) actually shows a subtotal of $67.45 if you attempt to purchase it through TicketMaster right now.

- The venue, promoters and artist have all that money put down for overbought tickets. Even if all the tickets held by brokers eventually sell, and even if they sold at a profit, those stakeholders have been able to make use of that money in the last three months since the tickets went on sale and most brokers invested, while the brokers have not. The artist and promoters have left money on the table in their pricing (which brokers attempt to capitalize on) but in exchange for that they get less risk (more sales at a low price) and more money at an earlier stage.

This example is fairly generous to brokers in that it's an event where they are subsidizing users, but I think it's an important example to bring up because so many people don't even account for this in their reasoning. Whether brokers make money or not, some of the same things apply, such as stakeholders getting money early and having a fairly good (most the time) accounting of demand for a sale by outsourcing that aspect to the crowd. It's an added benefit that artists and promoters (and venues) they can take large chunks of tickets that were never sold on the primary market and sell on the secondary market for additional profit.

In some aspects of what they do, ticket brokers are like high frequency traders, in other aspects, they perform other market functions (I'm a novice at best in the stock market, so I'd be hard pressed to explain this in detail).

1: https://www1.ticketmaster.com/event/1B005363D07BB554

2: https://www.stubhub.com/queens-of-the-stone-age-tickets-quee...

Re: New ethics courses in computer science

#150

Post by samzeisler »

This is incredibly long overdue and so important. My partners and I had designs on creating an ethical framework for technologists years ago but didn’t feel we had the platform or the reach to spread it. That’s no excuse for sitting Idly by and doing nothing but nonetheless, we are thrilled to see this now coming into play. I hope that the professors and professionals who are contemplating this will come together and form an alliance to create a national standard policy and statement around this.
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