Unity Workers Question Company Ethics as It Expands from Video Games to War
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Re: Unity Workers Question Company Ethics as It Expands from Video Games to War
#2Whilst I don't think there's any particular problem with building tech to help the government / military run simulations etc; I do think it should be made clear to employees what their work will be used for; especially if they are building some part of a tech stack that will be used for a project built by Unity the company itself. Whilst nobody can really expect Unity to police the projects of external developers - it seems a little disingenuous for Unity to conflate every project made using Unity with projects explicitly built by Unity themselves.
> "We believe in the freedom of expression, and as the Unity engine is a tool, a tool that can be downloaded and used by most anyone, it’s impossible to truly police or censor all uses of it," Unity said.
From a technical perspective I don't believe greater transparency is an impossible ask, nor even something which should cause any significant amount of administrative overhead. I'm not saying Unity staff should walk out of the job over it - but it does seem to me like there's an ethical concern here that it is within Unity's power to provide greater transparency over, without revealing the specific detail of projects.
Ultimately I doubt Unity is going to stop working on government military / contracts; it's up to employees to decide where their ethical line is; but I do think Unity should make it as easy as possible for their own employees to determine whether they're overstepping that line.
Re: Unity Workers Question Company Ethics as It Expands from Video Games to War
#3This is BS. Workers are poking around to know what contracts the company has with the military. Fine. Company is keeping hush on what contracts they have with military to avoid worker sensitivities. Fine.
But the activism that surrounds this garbage needs restraint. The activism is nowhere near real or fair. In a world where we try to make the biggest impact impossible, there is a line between where we create works and where that work is merged with other works to make an offensive product.
Sorry but as developers of said works we do not have any connection with the newly fused and offensive product. And this vice article is trying to ride the wave of activism on this.