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I want to write software that helps kill people.

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Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#21

Post by ctdonath »

wildermuthn wrote: post #14

Check out Stanford's Encylopedia of Philosophy entry on double-effect: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/ . Essentially, double-effect means that your good actions can have unintended yet foreseen evil consequences. If you make a hunting rifle, and someone uses that to shoot children at a school, are you responsible? Not an easy question to answer.

Very easy question to answer. The answer is "no". There was no ill intent, no expectation of misuse, no "mens rea" ("guilty mind"). The intended and expected market is very large and overwhelmingly upstanding. The good done far outweighs the freakish non-sequitur bad. You don't not do something just because, with a twisted line of reasoning, someone can conceive of 1 in orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude chance it might be abused.

Someone driving a car into a crowd does not make it Ford's fault. Society does not ban cars just because 50,000 people a year are killed by them.

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#22

Post by ctdonath »

tshepang wrote: post #18
wildermuthn wrote: post #14

Check out Stanford's Encylopedia of Philosophy entry on double-effect: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/ . Essentially, double-effect means that your good actions can have unintended yet foreseen evil consequences. If you make a hunting rifle, and someone uses that to shoot children at a school, are you responsible? Not an easy question to answer.

I suspect that future generations will be disgusted by the fact that we find it okay to shoot conscious beings for amusement. Am generalising of course.

Enjoy your hamburger.

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#23

Post by VLM »

mschuster91 wrote: post #3

I vaguely recall license terms which disallow anyone from using the code for military purposes - maybe it's time to adopt stuff like GPL/CC by extending them with an (optional) "do not use this software in machines/systems which have the power to kill/hurt people, or enable people to do so"

You're confusing military purposes with "have the power to kill/hurt people".

Any desktop fits #2 if I open it up, open up the power supply, and lick the output of the mains rectifier in the switching power supply. Or consider a laptop/tablet having an uncontrolled thermal battery reaction (aka bursts into flames) on an airplane over the middle of an ocean.

Somewhat more directly, my dentist can't use a "sorta-open-source" calendaring app because people have died in dental offices from allergic reactions to injected dental antibiotics/anesthetics. Its kinda rare, but has been recorded to happen.

Simply naming or defining organizations is not as simple as it appears. Your freedom fighter group is someone else's terrorist is someone elses pacifist organization.

You need a cop-out for intention and rarity. By the time you add enough cop-outs that anyone can actually use it, you've almost certain cop-out enough that the .mil can also use it.

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#24

Post by [deleted] »

mschuster91 wrote: post #7
wereHamster wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the JSON license. MIT with this additional clause: The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.

Who defines what is "good" and "evil"? Just take the example "pornography": in most Western countries pornography is accepted and not considered as "evil", but in many Islamic countries, pornography is considered sinful.

[deleted]

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#25

Post by jamessb »

mschuster91 wrote: post #7
wereHamster wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the JSON license. MIT with this additional clause: The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.

Who defines what is "good" and "evil"? Just take the example "pornography": in most Western countries pornography is accepted and not considered as "evil", but in many Islamic countries, pornography is considered sinful.

This concerned IBM, so Crockford sent them a document saying : "I give permission for IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use JSLint for evil."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#26

Post by pessimism »

I was once at a guest lecture by Bjarne Stroustrup (creator of C++ for those who don’t know), and during Q&A, someone in the audience asked him how he felt about the fact that his work was used to kill people.

(The rationale behind the question was based on fighter jets, to some extent, using software written in C++.)

The question was not tongue in cheek. Everyone in the auditorium laughed, though.

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#27

Post by wildermuthn »

ctdonath wrote: post #21
wildermuthn wrote: post #14

Check out Stanford's Encylopedia of Philosophy entry on double-effect: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/ . Essentially, double-effect means that your good actions can have unintended yet foreseen evil consequences. If you make a hunting rifle, and someone uses that to shoot children at a school, are you responsible? Not an easy question to answer.

Very easy question to answer. The answer is "no". There was no ill intent, no expectation of misuse, no "mens rea" ("guilty mind"). The intended and expected market is very large and overwhelmingly upstanding. The good done far outweighs the freakish non-sequitur bad. You don't not do something just because, with a twisted line of reasoning, someone can conceive of 1 in orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude chan…

I don't think it is so easy, especially if you are rigorous about your criteria and reasoning.

Double-effect has four criteria for making a judgment in any particular case. The intent of the maker is only one of the four. The most pertinent criteria in the case of the hunting rifle and school shooting scenario is the last, of proportionality. Does the good to be gained by having hunting rifles exceed the evil to be suffered by school shootings?

That's a tougher question to answer than whether there is an ill intent.

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#28

Post by rayiner »

The fact of the matter is that war is a basic function of human societies, as much as food production or waste disposal. Unsurprisingly, it thus taps the ingenuities of the society in the same way as those other areas. It both benefits from ingenuities intended for other purposes, and results in inventions itself that can be used for other purposes. And for better or worse, war is a great way to get the public to support R&D spending. DARPA could not be what it is without being a part of the DOD. See: http://tech.mit.edu/V114/N29/dod.29n.html, http://web.mit.edu/annualreports/pres07/12.00.pdf, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge.

And let's face it, its something you benefit from tremendously. You do not want a society in which the US does not have the power to kill everyone. That is a society in which your lifestyle is not as nice as it is now. Indeed, with the challenges we face in the coming century (oil, water scarcity, etc) as well as the ascension of India and China as world powers, our ability to kill people is going to be more important than ever.

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#29

Post by rmc »

wildermuthn wrote: post #14

Check out Stanford's Encylopedia of Philosophy entry on double-effect: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/ . Essentially, double-effect means that your good actions can have unintended yet foreseen evil consequences. If you make a hunting rifle, and someone uses that to shoot children at a school, are you responsible? Not an easy question to answer.

Guns are an interesting case. Thee are many tools (eg computers, knives, hammers) that can be used to kill someone, but most of the uses of them are not killing people (more tomatoes are cut with knives than people killed). I'm not so sure about guns. Are most of the instances of guns being fired being used to kill/hurt someone (or practice to kill/hurt someone)?

Perhaps it's the European in me that can't wrap my head around the American idea of guns. To me "Guns are dangerous" seems obvious.

It's an interesting cultural difference.

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#30

Post by rmc »

mschuster91 wrote: post #7
wereHamster wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the JSON license. MIT with this additional clause: The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.

Who defines what is "good" and "evil"? Just take the example "pornography": in most Western countries pornography is accepted and not considered as "evil", but in many Islamic countries, pornography is considered sinful.

Who defines it? The judge or jury. This is the Law 101.

This is why legalese is so dense and complex, to remove as much flexibility and doubt as possible, so that you don't have a judge/jury deciding things. If you include the definition of the terms in the contract/licence then the judge/jury had to follow that.

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