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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

#351

Post by imtringued »

jbay808 wrote: post #196
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.

Engineers at the beam companies just certify that the beam meets its specs. I'm not sure why software would be any different. Bridges are complicated and made up of versatile submodules, just like software. Some other software engineer eventually designs the "bridge" and selects "beams" for the structure. If those beams fail to meet their specs, then the engineers who stood by them are at fault. If the bridge fails b…

What if the engineer isn't allowed to certify his beams to save on costs? That's basically what happened with 737 MAX.

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

#352

Post by delhanty »

toohotatopic wrote: post #201

How about a Hippocratic Oath for business leaders? This is shifting the responsibility from management towards the engineers. It's not the engineers who pulled the trigger at Facebook - or Microsoft. They build the weapons. Management fires them. This is a hypocritic ode. If somebody is acting unethically at MS then it is management. All the innovation that is not happening because MS is abusing their position. Two t…

Why isn't this the top comment?

Microsoft executives seem more in need of lessons in ethics than their engineers. Just one example from last year:

>'We did not sign up to develop weapons' say Microsoft employees protesting $479 million HoloLens army contract

https://www.pcgamer.com/we-did-not-sign-up-to-develop-weapon...

>They build the weapons

Talking of weapons, while we speculate about what AI might be used for, Microsoft executives have literally decided to build actual weapons.

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

#353

Post by imtringued »

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…

There is a gigantic difference between building an unethical software product and abusing an ethical software product for unethical purposes. The developer is not the user. Do you not understand that?

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

#355

Post by imtringued »

walrus01 wrote: post #188
pixl97 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's very easy for management to not disclose unethical intentions. All they have to do is nothing.

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

#356

Post by spacemanmatt »

leeoniya wrote: post #145
ezoe wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, software can be really complex it's possible to make it so no one programmer can understand the whole picture. The tasks can be divided so the individual programmers are given order like "do X in condition of Y" which itself seems harmless and lawful, but combining them lead to malicious behaviours.

this is precisely the problem. few physicists knew they were all collectively building a nuclear bomb because the big picture was well compartmentalized. feynman only found out because he picked the locks of his colleagues to piece it all together.

I do not think this is accurate. Where did you get this version of events?

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

#357

Post by spacemanmatt »

yurlungur wrote: post #26

How about an oath for tech CEOs? Or better yet, some strong, comprehensive laws on data collection and ownership?

How about renewed enforcement of anti-trust laws? Tech CEOs love to make a big stand about issues but they are the root cause.

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

#358

Post by imtringued »

nicoburns wrote: post #272
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…

> Software engineers are accountable to their bosses before their users, no matter how high minded we like to pretend to be. Isn't that what a hipppocratic oath would solve. They'd be accountable to the oath before their bosses, and that would give them reasonable grounds to refuse unethical work.

How do you guarantee that the boss will cooperate with the software engineers and tell them about all the unethical business practices that are currently happening?

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

#359

Post by badRNG »

jojobas wrote: post #173
smabie wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While ethics are very far from universal, there are things that are universally accepted, i.e. that impaling everyone on Earth is bad. God is not the only possible foundation of ethics, and not the most sound at that.

> God is not the only possible foundation of ethics, and not the most sound at that.

Absent God (or some sort of other mind-body dualism that's largely suspect otherwise), I don't see how ethics can approach anything that resembles "universals." The ontology of morality in a naturalistic or materialist worldview seems committed to something like emotivism, unless one feels like attempting to bridge the is/ought divide. How can we ascertain what the "universal" is when so many rational beings can hold diametrically opposed moral values? Is it democratically decided?

If one is examining morality as the values of different groups of people, and another is debating what we ought to consider universally moral, there isn't going to be much consensus, and probably a fair bit of confusion.

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

#360

Post by imtringued »

Nasrudith wrote: post #308
batiudrami wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cars made us wealthier but they also contributed to obesity. It's not exactly clear if reducing obesity by banning cars is worth it.
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