Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers

capitalandgrowth.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 544 posts

Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers

#181

Post by ilaksh »

skissane wrote: post #118
paulryanrogers wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So management bears no blame for requiring illegal work be done, on pain of termination? Said another way, engineers now need to be technical and legal experts in the business domain? (Remember employees in the US depend on the company for health insurance. Saying 'no' could cost a lot more than just ones position.) Most software engineers are not like doctors. We have little autonomy over what is created. Our respon…

> Said another way, engineers now need to be technical and legal experts in the business domain? Consider something like the 737 MAX debacle – did the programmers writing the MCAS code actually have enough aviation domain knowledge and understanding of where the component fit in the overall system to realise it was a threat to people's lives? I don't know, but my guess is the most likely answer is "No".

That's completely the wrong comparison and context.

The reason MCAS came about was because management wanted to try to fudge a larger engine into an outdated design created for a different purpose rather than do the engineering and certification necessary for the new requirements and to update the system.

Management wanted to save money. Of course the engineering leadership did not want to fudge something -- they wanted to do proper engineering. But the people in charge just wanted to save money, and the engineering leadership could not do anything otherwise, even they knew that just making the engine larger and compensating did not make sense from an engineering standpoint.

By the time it got to the MCAS, that was far down the line of the decision to not do proper engineering.

Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers

#182

Post by throw_m239339 »

trimbo wrote: post #49
SllX wrote: post #16

Translation: we need to increase barriers of entry to working in this field by spreading the social cancer that is vocational licensing to software engineering.

How do you hire an architect to design your house? Pick a doctor? Pick a lawyer?

This is different. Anybody can create a website and thus the next Facebook/Twitter/TikTok. As far as I know, I don't need a permit to build a website. Requiring one would stifle freedom of speech.

On the other hand you bet that if you work on missile guidance/plane software you'll need some sort of certification. Your comparison just doesn't work. And there are already laws in place that any website dealing with user data or any sort of ecommerce must follow.

Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers

#183

Post by LoSboccacc »

that's a lot of words to try and move accountability from the executive level into the common soldiery.

the medical profession hierarchy is completely different to accommodate for medics own agency.

responsibility without freedom (and without just compensation, dare I say) is just bullshit.

Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers

#184

Post by [deleted] »

ryandrake wrote: post #169
pixl97 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, this isn't a great analogy either. If I'm an engineer that develops a single beam in a bridge, is it my fault if someone assembles those beams together in such a way that is dangerous? At which point does a function become unethical? Do you now have to only use software made in your country by ethical developers? Software isn't a bridge and comparisons fall apart quickly.

Wow, I’m realizing what an unpopular opinion this is on HN! Yes, as a software developer you should absolutely be accountable for the ethical concerns around what that protobuf you’re moving around from one API layer to the other is used for. You’re not a code monkey. Ask, and refuse if it’s unacceptable. I have quit jobs where the ultimate purpose of what I was building was evil. EDIT: Forum the original OP: > Softw…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers

#185

Post by pixl97 »

walrus01 wrote: post #161
pixl97 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I mean, that is good of you to have a moral backbone, unfortunately there are many people behind you that will do the same job in software and they can be located anywhere in the world.

In the current state of things, that is factually true. However the same argument could be applied to labor abuses in the textile/garment and shoe manufacturing industry. Most people who follow news are probably aware that about 20 years ago Nike, Adidas and other brands went through a period of terrible public relations disasters, after the working conditions in some of their shoe factories in developing nations wer…

And again, the analogs in software are much more, messy.

A shoe is a physical artifact. It must be made somewhere out of something. Software is much more flexible. If I tell you to build an 'ethical' piece of software with an extensible API, it will only take a tiny amount of work to make it do something unethical.

And much like the shoe companies abusing labour's, that had nothing to do with the engineers that made a a product line, but the management that is driven to ever lower costs.

Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers

#186

Post by walrus01 »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #180
walrus01 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the current state of things, that is factually true. However the same argument could be applied to labor abuses in the textile/garment and shoe manufacturing industry. Most people who follow news are probably aware that about 20 years ago Nike, Adidas and other brands went through a period of terrible public relations disasters, after the working conditions in some of their shoe factories in developing nations wer…

The more abstract the problem the less people care. Police suffocating someone to death > 1,000,000 people being subtly spied on. "I got nothing to hide" after all.

The farther away and more abstract the problem, it's absolutely more difficult to get people to care. Trying to get Americans to care about what's going on with prison camps in Xinjiang province right now is difficult, if not impossible, outside of the subset of people who deeply care about the issues involved.

Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers

#187

Post by grumple »

smabie wrote: post #165
jojobas wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key incentive is cash. As long as doing sinister things can pay, there will be people doing it.

Or maybe, just maybe, ethics isn't at all universal? If my time in other countries has taught me one thing, it's that different people and different cultures have very different ideas on right and wrong. Ultimately (like, really ultimately), the very idea of ethics is a meaningless fabrication in the absence of God. Without an ultimate arbiter of truth, morality cannot exist.

I think you might find some intro philosophy useful to understand how you can have a universal morality without a deity. Some Kant is a good place to start, with his universal law being a fundamental idea.

Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers

#188

Post by walrus01 »

pixl97 wrote: post #185
walrus01 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the current state of things, that is factually true. However the same argument could be applied to labor abuses in the textile/garment and shoe manufacturing industry. Most people who follow news are probably aware that about 20 years ago Nike, Adidas and other brands went through a period of terrible public relations disasters, after the working conditions in some of their shoe factories in developing nations wer…

And again, the analogs in software are much more, messy. A shoe is a physical artifact. It must be made somewhere out of something. Software is much more flexible. If I tell you to build an 'ethical' piece of software with an extensible API, it will only take a tiny amount of work to make it do something unethical. And much like the shoe companies abusing labour's, that had nothing to do with the engineers that made…

Also unlike a shoe, the management of a company with ethically produced/designed software could fire all of the original developers and sell the company and its IP. To an organization that would make API changes/data storage changes and it would suddenly become something much more harmful.

Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers

#189

Post by throw_m239339 »

scarmig wrote: post #112

It just seems pointless to me. Microsoft collaborates with the PRC, including governmental projects that go well into deeply questionable territory. Presumably Brad Smith would stop those if he could, since he's selling himself as an ethics guru. But if the President of Microsoft himself is unable to scrub out these ethical blackspots, what would software engineers taking an ill-defined oath do?

Microsoft itself imposed their OS by very questionable means, unethical means, I will not be lectured about ethics by any Microsoft bigshot to begin with, as a software developer. Especially when none of the Microsoft execs made amend for their little schemes in the 80's and the 90's.

Re: Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers

#190

Post by austincheney »

baggy_trough wrote: post #74
austincheney wrote: post #66

It’s unfortunate, perhaps to the point of irrelevance, that a need for ethics was raised and then summarily limited to AI. Software, all software, needs an ethical standard and it currently has nothing remotely close in common practice. This will be a hard sell though, because most developers have no idea what ethics are, why they would be needed, or how they apply to practice. Frequently when the idea of ethics are…

Certainly we can be very happy that it is so.

When you don't have anything to compare it to I am sure its perfect and faultless.
Post reply on HN