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

How professional ethics work

siderea.dreamwidth.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 56 posts

Re: How professional ethics work

#21

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

hackyhacky wrote: post #12
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did you read the whole article? Isn't there something in the Ts and Cs about that kind of question? I know. My comment was about that line (and the "libertarian" comment). Note my comment about managers.

You're right, I violated the standards and practices. I saw your comment about the managers, but it rather misses the point. The idea of professional ethics is that the practitioners need licensure so that they can refuse to perform unethical work demanded by their manager. If programming managers had a professional code of ethics, it wouldn't impact the ability of individual programmers from doing unethical things.

Sure it would. Make managers accountable for their employees.

I always took that approach, and worked for a Japanese company, and they ran that way.

Re: How professional ethics work

#22

Post by BSEdlMMldESB »

the laws are something that is written, they are a consequence of writing (where writing is taken as a social technology)

software is something new, it's writing that can write itself, or change itself. it's a bunch or written things which then take other written things and transform them.

this has conceptual consequences for the laws because the technology that the the concept of laws if mounted on top of, has been radically changed by software

hence it's not as simple as relying on 'licensure' which ultimately leans on the notions and constructions emanating from "the written law"

maybe in the future congress is going to have to approve pull-requests to google infrastructure code? heheh

Re: How professional ethics work

#23

Post by titanomachy »

I think the author's main point is insightful. Professional ethics are much more effective when they have the weight of regulation, because then your employer can't just replace you with someone who will do the unethical thing that they want.

In my opinion, it is probably still worth refusing to build things that violate your personal ethics. You will sleep better at night, and you will introduce friction to doing unethical things, which may cause your employer to re-evaluate their course of action. Or they might fire you.

Also, I struggle to imagine what a world of regulated software engineers (with an enforceable set of professional ethics) would look like. To use the author's example, giving surgeons a monopoly on surgery is pretty simple: if you cut people up with a scalpel, even with their permission, and you're not certified by your country's board of surgery, then you're committing a crime. What would a world of regulated software engineering look like? Are all employees of a company who are not licensed software engineers now prohibited from using code to solve their problems? Is a business analyst writing SQL allowed? What if they start writing stored procedures in python? Are you allowed to use CLI tools? What about creating bash scripts to automate your CLI workflow?

It works in specific, highly regulated industries (e.g. "only licensed software engineers may contribute to avionics firmware, or the device will not be FAA certifiable"). But for general-purpose business-grade software... I don't think it is possible to come up with a sensible and useful rule that could draw a line between programmers and everyone else. So my bet is that we continue unregulated.

Re: How professional ethics work

#24

Post by FishInTheWater »

k__ wrote: post #18
frankenbagel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They explain that: because professional ethics are enforced . If some licensing panel finds you violated the documented ethics, your career in that field can be over… for life.

I find that's a bit too handwavy. Why would you redefine something as fundamental as a fact, that's quite different from an opinion, as "the opinion that a group enforces"? The repercussions if you violate those opinions might have factual consequences for you, but that makes the basis for all this not more factual.

For personal ethics, they are mere opinion as you get to choose what those ethics are. For professional ethics, those ethics are the opinions of the relevant professional associations and regulatory bodies.

They are facts in the sense that "The Bar believes that it is unethical to lie to the court" is a fact. It is simply factually true that the legal profession holds that ethics belief.

And thus the point, anyone who seeks to join such a profession has to accept their ethics "as if" they were facts. You can't choose other professional ethics in the sense that you can choose to hold a different opinion.

Re: How professional ethics work

#25

Post by Wowfunhappy »

titanomachy wrote: post #23

I think the author's main point is insightful. Professional ethics are much more effective when they have the weight of regulation, because then your employer can't just replace you with someone who will do the unethical thing that they want. In my opinion, it is probably still worth refusing to build things that violate your personal ethics. You will sleep better at night, and you will introduce friction to doing un…

> Also, I struggle to imagine what a world of regulated software engineers (with an enforceable set of professional ethics) would look like. To use the author's example, giving surgeons a monopoly on surgery is pretty simple: if you cut people up with a scalpel, even with their permission, and you're not certified by your country's board of surgery, then you're committing a crime. What would a world of regulated software engineering look like?

Here's what I imagine it would look like. I don't particularly like it.

All powerful computers operate like iPhones. Normal people are prohibited from executing code outside of a limited sandbox. Licensed software developers have the ability to execute code.

It's already starting to happen, except the "license" is a developer account with individual platform vendors.

Re: How professional ethics work

#26

Post by alphazard »

Licensure is a natural response to LLMs making code generation easier. People want to protect their jobs and AI is coming for them. Creating a regulatory cartel let's some in-group become "the real engineers" who are able to approve the output of LLMs, or other "non-engineers".

All this under the auspices of "ethics", which as a reminder, is just an arbitrary set of rules which someone is trying to pass off as having a divine origin.

Re: How professional ethics work

#27

Post by titanomachy »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #25
titanomachy wrote: post #23

I think the author's main point is insightful. Professional ethics are much more effective when they have the weight of regulation, because then your employer can't just replace you with someone who will do the unethical thing that they want. In my opinion, it is probably still worth refusing to build things that violate your personal ethics. You will sleep better at night, and you will introduce friction to doing un…

> Also, I struggle to imagine what a world of regulated software engineers (with an enforceable set of professional ethics) would look like. To use the author's example, giving surgeons a monopoly on surgery is pretty simple: if you cut people up with a scalpel, even with their permission, and you're not certified by your country's board of surgery, then you're committing a crime. What would a world of regulated soft…

Makes me think of this Stallman short story[0]:

"debugger vendors in 2047 distributed numbered copies only, and only to officially licensed and bonded programmers"

I don't think it would happen, because it's too difficult of a global coordination problem. E.g. if you make it too hard to build software in the US, then it will just get built elsewhere, and the US will no longer be dominant or even important in tech.

[0]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html

Re: How professional ethics work

#28

Post by version_five »

titanomachy wrote: post #23

I think the author's main point is insightful. Professional ethics are much more effective when they have the weight of regulation, because then your employer can't just replace you with someone who will do the unethical thing that they want. In my opinion, it is probably still worth refusing to build things that violate your personal ethics. You will sleep better at night, and you will introduce friction to doing un…

In engineering (electrical, mechanical, civil) we have professional licensure[0]. It doesn't mean you can't design an electric system without a license. It means you can't represent yourself as an engineer, nor can you stamp engineering drawings. There are some legal situations, particularly building / structural where stamped drawings are needed, and so only a P.Eng can do that.

But if it's say designing a circuit board, or a machined part, there is no generic regulation, and anyone can do it.

There is already "software engineering" as a regulated discipline, and similar rules apply there. I have no idea if there are any situations where you need a stamped software deliverable. But they would have an engineers stamp. I have one (as an electrical engineer) that I haven't used and don't expect to.

All that to say, what matters is the combination of professional licensing and the requirement for a licensed professional. In engineering (applied science), it's actually pretty rare, even though it's a regulated profession.

[0] I'm in Canada, I think the US system is similar

Re: How professional ethics work

#29

Post by biomcgary »

titanomachy wrote: post #23

I think the author's main point is insightful. Professional ethics are much more effective when they have the weight of regulation, because then your employer can't just replace you with someone who will do the unethical thing that they want. In my opinion, it is probably still worth refusing to build things that violate your personal ethics. You will sleep better at night, and you will introduce friction to doing un…

First, they came for C compilers and you said nothing. Then, they came for Python interpreters and you said nothing. Now that they are coming for Excel, who will defend you?

Re: How professional ethics work

#30

Post by m463 »

titanomachy wrote: post #23

I think the author's main point is insightful. Professional ethics are much more effective when they have the weight of regulation, because then your employer can't just replace you with someone who will do the unethical thing that they want. In my opinion, it is probably still worth refusing to build things that violate your personal ethics. You will sleep better at night, and you will introduce friction to doing un…

Yes, I can see AI driving software, flight software, medical electronics and more benefiting everyone involved.
Post reply on HN