Why should software developers take the oath? Half of us are already working for morally bankrupt companies. The companies should take those oaths and stop building products that ultimately produce negative externality.
Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers
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Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
In sufficiently complex systems, you can always blame someone else if you're motivated to do so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IssR_J0QWr4 But ultimately there's always a software engineer involved in the creation of software - and that's not true of any of the other roles you mentioned. Since software engineers are necessary and sufficient to produce software, they should always be held responsible, and any oath s…
How about a compromise then? Software engineers are responsible for the negative consequences of the software. Any and all responsibility they take is then also shared with every person that is above them in the hierarchy. Eg a developer does something and society finds this unethical and punishes them. The developer's boss, the boss's boss, the boss's boss's boss etc up to the CEO all get punished in the same way. F…
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Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the point is that we can't just rely on individual ethics to enact change. People have bills to pay and kids to feed, if it's all on the man at the bottom to say no then a lot of bad software is still going to be created.
I think making a statement as an industry helps avoid some of this stuff even being asked. With research you can easily find doctors who are brought in to assist with torture or other heinous crimes, but in general I would expect it to be harder to find a doctor to help with my project of creating a more addictive cigarette versus finding a web developer to help me market them. There's some (not a lot, but some) powe…
You would lose the ability to practise medicine as a license is required.
Do you want to license software developers?
Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers
#94Doctors no longer take the Hippocratic Oath (because it is incompatible with a lot of difficult situations doctors are placed in). But more to the point: Why are we trying to shift focus from the wrongs large multi-nationals do to individual software engineers? Plus what would the result be if this "oath" conflicts with a manager's instructions? Maybe we should start with Microsoft, Google, Comcast, Oracle, and simil…
"Just doing my job"
Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers
#95I’m not a fan of comparisons to the Hippocratic oath. The greatest risk to AI ethics is not the ethics of software engineers but the ethics of the software engineering process. By the time tasks are handed to engineers, most of the ethical decisions have been made by product managers, designers, and business stakeholders who are focused on their own goals. Software engineers are accountable to their bosses before the…
Being expected to behave ethically is part of being an Engineer regardless of what your boss expects. Now we increasingly see real world negative consequences of the work of software engineers I don't see why they should be any different.
The consequences of the decisions made by Microsoft Presidents and their ilk, since they are the ones who actually decide what software will look like.
But still it would be good when MS gets found to do unethical things that a programmer could be scapegoated instead of their president, at least from the presidents perspective.
Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers
#96There is one.
Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
In sufficiently complex systems, you can always blame someone else if you're motivated to do so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IssR_J0QWr4 But ultimately there's always a software engineer involved in the creation of software - and that's not true of any of the other roles you mentioned. Since software engineers are necessary and sufficient to produce software, they should always be held responsible, and any oath s…
How about a compromise then? Software engineers are responsible for the negative consequences of the software. Any and all responsibility they take is then also shared with every person that is above them in the hierarchy. Eg a developer does something and society finds this unethical and punishes them. The developer's boss, the boss's boss, the boss's boss's boss etc up to the CEO all get punished in the same way. F…
> Any and all responsibility they take is then also shared with every person that is above them in the hierarchy.
Currently, if I write software that performs illegal actions -- let's say software that allows me to use unlicensed Adobe products -- at the request of my boss and their boss, all three of us would be legally liable.
Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers
#98Doctors no longer take the Hippocratic Oath (because it is incompatible with a lot of difficult situations doctors are placed in). But more to the point: Why are we trying to shift focus from the wrongs large multi-nationals do to individual software engineers? Plus what would the result be if this "oath" conflicts with a manager's instructions? Maybe we should start with Microsoft, Google, Comcast, Oracle, and simil…
This absolutely reeks of the corporate effort to undermine action of climate change or environmental policy in general: advertising campaigns being run with a focus on individual responsibility to consume less, save water etc. as a way to divert attention from systemic action which would have an impact by controlling the biggest contributors.
Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers
#99Doctors no longer take the Hippocratic Oath (because it is incompatible with a lot of difficult situations doctors are placed in). But more to the point: Why are we trying to shift focus from the wrongs large multi-nationals do to individual software engineers? Plus what would the result be if this "oath" conflicts with a manager's instructions? Maybe we should start with Microsoft, Google, Comcast, Oracle, and simil…
Maybe, “don’t be evil”.
Depends how you define evil. Is advertising evil? Then Facebook and Google engineers are committing evil. Is working with repressive governments evil? Then Apple and Microsoft engineers are committing evil. That's a sizeable chunk of engineers right there.