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Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

nytimes.com

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Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#231

Post by ryderm »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #225
hasbroslasher wrote: post #210

It's true that ultimately there aren't a whole lot of morally "good" things you can do with your compsci degree at the moment. You can work in adtech or building corporate software, ecommerce, etc. to sell plastic trinkets to people and raise your company's stock price. Or you can do ML, which will probably hurt poor people in the near to mid term and probably contribute somewhat to the more Orwellian aspects of mode…

Doing the right thing — not what’s profitable or power enhancing — isn’t what business is about. In part that is because survival and solvency are quite difficult in the details; and in part that is because doing “good” requires a much richer concept of what you are doing than is required by being profitable and placating shareholders. It’s easier to get it wrong, harder to say when you’re done and can move resources…

> Doing the right thing — not what’s profitable or power enhancing — isn’t what business is about.

If only society / the global economic system wasn't set up to incentive profit over all else....

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#232

Post by hasbroslasher »

Kalium wrote: post #228
hasbroslasher wrote: post #210

It's true that ultimately there aren't a whole lot of morally "good" things you can do with your compsci degree at the moment. You can work in adtech or building corporate software, ecommerce, etc. to sell plastic trinkets to people and raise your company's stock price. Or you can do ML, which will probably hurt poor people in the near to mid term and probably contribute somewhat to the more Orwellian aspects of mode…

I know! You're incredibly right! It's seems impossible that so many smart, educated, talented, passionate, hard-working people could fail to solve any problem they put their minds to! Yet, might it be worth considering that any individual human brain could potentially be less than infinitely malleable in all possible aspects? I have known blindingly brilliant artists who are utterly repulsed by basic arithmetic, and…

As far as "the price paid" that you mention: the price is not paid in any way. The price is being put on a high-interest credit card and we're paying the minimum. Someday those cans we've kicked down the road (carbon emissions, pacific garbage patch, destruction of ocean ecosystems in general, deforestation, economic inequality, desertification, etc.) in order to sell more plastic trinkets will come back to collect on our outstanding balance.

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#233

Post by TangoTrotFox »

saosebastiao wrote: post #151

Lately I've been experiencing some depression (under treatment), so maybe this is just the state of my mind right now, but is anyone else growing more and more cynical about the potential for changing the world, and adjusting their moral philosophy to compensate? I could barely impact how my former employer ran the company, and even though I had the company's best interests at heart the whole time, I faced resistance…

You know what the most amazing thing about Google is? 20 years ago they didn't exist. Today they are undoubtedly one of the most influential companies in the world and with enough revenue and influence to achieve as much as anybody. The reason I mention this is that I don't think one should look to get others to try to change the world. People will do what they want to do. Proving the value of your views is difficult, but probably easier than convincing those with the power to adapt them in a meaningful way to do just that.

You have to keep in mind that things look different from different perspectives. It seems that swapping to metric should be no big deal. In reality we already have things like the Mars Climate Orbiter. That was a $300 million probe launched by NASA in 1998. It disintegrated in Mars' orbit. What happened? The spacecraft was built to operate using SI units. Unfortunately one of the systems they were using to direct it was still using customary measurements. $300 million completely wasted because of what you'd think would be no big deal. It should be easy to just ensure all systems are communicating using the same systems of measurement, right? And NASA certainly has decently competent people working for them. But the thing is as things get larger and larger seemingly simple changes can often produce unexpectedly catastrophic side effects, or end up being far more difficult to synchronize than would ever be expected. Actually, this nature of software alone is probably a perfect microcosm of the nature of change in business as well.

So yeah, earn a ton of money doing whatever. And then use that money to do what you think ought be done. If you succeed, great you've changed the world. If not, try again.

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#234

Post by kareemsabri »

zeveb wrote: post #173
strikelaserclaw wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even before the "dudebros", i'd argue most scientists and engineers didn't really care too much about the moral implications of their work. Guns, bombs etc... were all invented by brilliant minds, we'd like to think we as a society have collectively evolved cause we have small machines in our hands with all the world's knowledge but esp in the usa, looking outside you see that nothing has really changed that much in…

> most scientists and engineers didn't really care too much about the moral implications of their work Have you considered that they might care very much about the moral implications of their work — and be proud to contribute to their nation's armed might?

Of course not, this is silicon valley.

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#235

Post by jcmoscon »

hasbroslasher wrote: post #210

It's true that ultimately there aren't a whole lot of morally "good" things you can do with your compsci degree at the moment. You can work in adtech or building corporate software, ecommerce, etc. to sell plastic trinkets to people and raise your company's stock price. Or you can do ML, which will probably hurt poor people in the near to mid term and probably contribute somewhat to the more Orwellian aspects of mode…

You could build a decentralized version of facebook or twitter. That would be a truly amazing progress to humankind!

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#236

Post by TulliusCicero »

yosefzeev wrote: post #78

I find it surprising that educated people are "just now" doing this. What did people think corporations were doing to the world? Open up your eyes and look around and get your head out of the code and the bullshit slogans your companies have sold you. It's obvious something has gone wrong and is going on.

It's easy to talk about all the shitty things corporations do -- which, to be sure, are many -- but the critics ignore anything good, or just claim that "obviously the government/open source projects/NGO's could've done it just as well".

It's exactly like how hardcore libertarians respond to anything good the government does ever by saying the free market would've done it even better: their dogma doesn't permit them to say otherwise, and so they can safely assume they're always right.

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#237

Post by kareemsabri »

ryderm wrote: post #231
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing the right thing — not what’s profitable or power enhancing — isn’t what business is about. In part that is because survival and solvency are quite difficult in the details; and in part that is because doing “good” requires a much richer concept of what you are doing than is required by being profitable and placating shareholders. It’s easier to get it wrong, harder to say when you’re done and can move resources…

> Doing the right thing — not what’s profitable or power enhancing — isn’t what business is about. If only society / the global economic system wasn't set up to incentive profit over all else....

It's really not. People take jobs for all sorts of reasons. They are answerable to their friends, family, community etc. If that were the case, why would people be resigning from Google over moral issues?

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#238

Post by uhtred »

hasbroslasher wrote: post #210

It's true that ultimately there aren't a whole lot of morally "good" things you can do with your compsci degree at the moment. You can work in adtech or building corporate software, ecommerce, etc. to sell plastic trinkets to people and raise your company's stock price. Or you can do ML, which will probably hurt poor people in the near to mid term and probably contribute somewhat to the more Orwellian aspects of mode…

I wonder if socialism done right (if that's possible, as no one has yet proven it is) would lead to smart people working on the kinds of things you listed. In theory it would, as there'd be no need for adtech, ecommerce, Wall Street, etc.

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#239

Post by ryderm »

Kalium wrote: post #228
hasbroslasher wrote: post #210

It's true that ultimately there aren't a whole lot of morally "good" things you can do with your compsci degree at the moment. You can work in adtech or building corporate software, ecommerce, etc. to sell plastic trinkets to people and raise your company's stock price. Or you can do ML, which will probably hurt poor people in the near to mid term and probably contribute somewhat to the more Orwellian aspects of mode…

I know! You're incredibly right! It's seems impossible that so many smart, educated, talented, passionate, hard-working people could fail to solve any problem they put their minds to! Yet, might it be worth considering that any individual human brain could potentially be less than infinitely malleable in all possible aspects? I have known blindingly brilliant artists who are utterly repulsed by basic arithmetic, and…

> but this critic is almost certainly making perfect the enemy of good in pursuit of an ideal.

Yes, because "good" means preventable poverty related deaths by the millions because it is not profitable to do anything about it \s. Good for you != good, but it is easy to look past that when it isn't right in your face

Re: Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For?

#240

Post by solidsnack9000 »

ryderm wrote: post #231
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing the right thing — not what’s profitable or power enhancing — isn’t what business is about. In part that is because survival and solvency are quite difficult in the details; and in part that is because doing “good” requires a much richer concept of what you are doing than is required by being profitable and placating shareholders. It’s easier to get it wrong, harder to say when you’re done and can move resources…

> Doing the right thing — not what’s profitable or power enhancing — isn’t what business is about. If only society / the global economic system wasn't set up to incentive profit over all else....

It's the other way around -- if only we didn't expect the economic system to serve every social need.

Business and the economy are doing what they are supposed to do. It's our expectations that are out of line.

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