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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

#301

Post by eie7eu3hrruur »

madrox wrote: post #8

I’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…

I think people assume the Hippocratic oath actually makes a difference. It's culturally important to many doctors of course, but how often has that hindered the military or the CIA from hiring enough doctors to facilitate a new interrogation program? Of the illegal human experiments that happened in the US many had doctors working for them as well. It's a good guiding principle but the idea that it would actually make an impact of any kind is debateable. It doesn't matter if 90% of coders follow the oath if 10% or even 5% are enough to handle the demand for oath breaking.

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

#303

Post by ivanche »

bjo590 wrote: post #97
Aerroon wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seems you're conflating illegal and unethical.

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

#304

Post by Nasrudith »

Ygg2 wrote: post #299
BeetleB wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You write a tool for let's say recognizing faces. Will it be used for login onto computer? Tracking dissidents? IDing corpses? Who knows. I mentioned this in another comment, but I'll say it again: Irrespective of any legal/ethical concerns, yes, I would like to know! If my boss just came to me and said "build a facial recognition system" I certainly will ask how it is going to be used. Not because I care about eth…

> If they pivot after my work is done, I won't feel responsible. So if you invented dynamite you wouldn't feel responsible for its use? But, let's change it a bit more personal. You write an awesome OSS yaml parser. It's so good, that GFW of China uses it as a main component, and this gets published in the news. What would you do? Nothing you did changed, but suddenly your work is powering an unethical component.

Dynamite is a good example of why the philosophy is complete bullshit. How about you blame the stupid evil fuckers who started all of the futile wars to try to get rich in the quagmire that was European geopolitics instead of tbe person who made them safer?

It is the same sort of stupid blame shifting involved with the hippocratic oath for x nonsense. Oaths are majorly outmoded in the zeitgeist anyway because everyone recognizes lies are commonplace.

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

#305

Post by Shivetya »

Someone1234 wrote: post #32

Doctors 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…

tl;dr

Reality, we have virtue signaling.

.... soap box

because its and end run. the idea being that if software developers had this as a whole then corporations could not force them to do whatever it is that was then decided as against the oath but it amounts to nothing more than virtue signaling

the issue with a software developer Hippocratic Oath is that you can damn well bet it will be subject to the whims of whomever is loudest on social media or whatever political group wants to use it to damage the other party.

The Hippocratic Oath is protected by history and pretty much limited to interpretation but any such oath or rule today is not worth page it is printed on.

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

#306

Post by swyx »

we already have one that is pretty close - Ted Nelson from his 1974 book Dream Machines:

The purpose of computers is human freedom.

I am going to help make people free through computers.

I will not help the computer priesthood confuse and bully the public.

I will endeavor to explain patiently what computer systems really do.

I will not give misleading answers to get people off my back, like “Because that’s the way computers work” instead of “Because that’s the way I designed it.”

I will stand firm against the forces of evil.

I will speak up against computer systems that are oppressive, insulting, or unkind, and do the best I can to improve or replace them, if I cannot prevent them from being bought or created in the first place.

I will fight injustice, complication, and any company that makes things difficult on purpose.

I will do all I can to further human understanding, especially through the new visualizing tools of interactive computer graphics.

I will do what I can to make systems easy to understand, interactive wherever possible, and fun for the user.

I will try not to make fun of another user’s favorite computer language, even if it is COBOL or BASIC.

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

#307

Post by sudhirj »

The Hippocratic oath isn't very effective — it did not prevent the development of bioweapons, drugs to carry out death sentences, or human destruction during WW2. If doctors can have their oath circumvented in a very tangible and obvious way, why do we think programmers working at a high level of abstraction can't?

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

#308

Post by Nasrudith »

batiudrami wrote: post #19
madrox wrote: post #8

I’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.

Well there is one major assumption error there - that negative real world consequences are only linked to negative ethics.

That is so wrong it isn't even funny. If the car was invented as powered by a Mr. Fusion the buggy whip makers going out of business would be a negative real world consequence.

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

#309

Post by ethanbond »

jlnthws wrote: post #291
madrox wrote: post #8

I’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…

Exactly. An oath means nothing: what you need is skin in the game. Some health practitioners are literally bought by Big Pharma, by their hospital accountant, etc. How would an oath fix that? Same with engineers or any other discipline. You need to make sure that everyone in the process has skin in the game. For me it's less about control (legislation) than about responsibility and accountability (assessments, eating…

What does “skin in the game” mean precisely in this context?

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

#310

Post by marcus_holmes »

The Hippocratic Oath works for doctors because they have power over what happens to their patient(s). Administrators and managers run the facility, but cannot tell Doctors what to do.

It would only work for software engineers if we moved to the same model: Management run the facility but cannot tell software developers what to build.

I don't think that's a viable model for managing software development.

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