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What if your management decides to pay customers 20% more on the .com version of your company's website than the .co.au version to meet quarterly numbers?
What if you're going to be more likely to have a suspicion that the formal company was ignored, but your coworkers would never know?
What if your company asks you to set up software to garner content without paying or giving credit to creators and probably would never find out?
Would you like to create software and other questionable actions? How many questions can you ask before you begin?
The difference between what you can, a software developer, can do legally, a floor, and what you shoulds do, a ceiling, is often vast, confusing, and not always intuitive. Loosely, this difference is ethics, and navigating it systematically as a pro vision perspective, experience, and most importantly, a framework of values. Many other groups of professionals – such as doctors and lawyers – have adopted ethical frameworks and have institutions that help navigate the concepts of right and wrong. But when it comes to software development – this is a profession that is shaping modern society like no other
What we have today
There are a few pledges, oaths, and codes of conduct that exist for software developers. For the International Standard for Professional Software Development and Ethical Responsibility by the IEEE-CS / ACM Joint Task Force on Software Engineering and Professional Practices. It recognizes that "Computers have a central and growing role in commerce, industry, government, medicine, education, entertainment and society at large." Furthermore, "Because of their roles in developing software systems, software engineers have significant opportunities. do good or cause harm, to enable others to do good or cause harm, or to influence others to do good or cause harm. "Then, it focuses on the principles of the public, customer and employ, product, judgment, management, profession, colleagues, and self.
There are many other, less comprehensive efforts. For example, the Programmer's Oath by "Uncle Bob" Martin, the "Never Again" Pledge, the Pledge of the Computing Professional, the Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics by the Computer Ethics Institute, the ACM Code of Ethics, and the Trustworthy Coder's Pledge by Bill Sourour. There is an Online Ethics Center (OEC) resource maintained by the Center for Ethics Engineering and Society (CEES). Some universities, such as the Computer Science Department at Stony Brook University's College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, teach Professional Ethics for Computer Science. And sites like ComputingCases.org have historical cases, exercises, badignments, essays, information, advice, and guidance.
However, these efforts are underdeveloped, contradictory, ambiguous, and unenforceable. Critically, they lack oversight and accountability.
The shortcomings
There is no comprehensive and widely-adopted framework to guide crucial daily decisions that will impact users for future generations. And many companies and software engineers do not ask hard questions as part of their software development process. They are not contemplating ethical consequences, what is the right thing to do, or who it affects. And software developers at powerful technology companies
I conducted a short, unscientific survey to get a rough sense of how much software developers are trained to handle questions of ethics. The majority of professionals, made essential engineering decisions, and lead technical teams did not have a meaningful, in-depth ethics race in their life, definitely not having college. Indeed, there is no continuing education obligation to understand evolving ethics in a fast-paced innovation landscape or how to identify ethics violations. Rigorous and systematic testing to make sure that software developers have a working knowledge of ethics in various contexts is missing.
This is not to say that the majority of software developers are unethical or do not understand ethics. On the contrary, in my experience, many software developers. And, much of ethics is human and innate. So, there is hope. However, in the age of fake news, hacking, election interference, and many other unintended consequences of technology, it is irresponsible that software developers use their gut as a barometer to improvise what is right for our future. This "hope for the best" approach is ripe for improvement.
The effect on developers
Of course, it is currently not clear that software developers should do it if they encounter an ethical violation that does not make it illegal. Without a formal ethics framework, they are not empowered to question their job. Their ability to use the right thing is minimal at best. And exceptions they qualify under the narrow whistleblower exceptions, they have no legal support to back them. Leaking, often anonymously, to a journalist and praying for public outrage is often the only recourse.
Further, developers themselves could be held liable for decisions made elsewhere in their organization. In addition to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the well-developed body of fraud and criminal law has been applied to software developers and founders. In the eyes of the law, any tool can become a weapon if it is used to harm others or violate laws, and software could be that tool.
Based on a recent US Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) speech on October 16, 2018, by the CFTC Commissioner, it seems to be possible for individual software developers to be able to bind CFTC rule violations. The commissioner explained, "The appropriate question is that these software developers should be able to predict, at the time they created the code, that it would be likely to be used by US persons in a violative manner of CFTC regulations. … As such, the CFTC could be looking for those individuals for wrongdoing. "
(Relatedly, I predict that software developer will become a hot topic.)
A comprehensive ethical framework would not only help developers but also help the public and their stakeholders from ethics-related damage. Consider the recent train wrecks of Uber and Facebook that have unfolded in the public eye.
Towards a solution
The field of software development needs a more intentional, mature, and consistent ethical framework. There are many ways to design such a framework, but a formal and mandatory self-regulated model may be a good place to start. Professions that formally and mandatorily self-regulate, such as lawyers and doctors, provide standardization, continuing education requirements, violation adjudication process and body, and periodic guidance.
Independent of framework specifics, it is time for the software industry to stop hoping, start guiding software developers on ethics, and ultimately hold software professionals accountable. After all, we all depend on software developers to build an uninhabitable world without unpleasant surprises.
Olga V. Mack is a technology strategist, experienced corporate board director, attorney, author, public speaker, and women's advocate. She is Vice President of Strategy at Quantstamp, a decentralized security auditing blockchain platform. She has previously worked at Visa, ClearSlide, Zoosk, Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Wilson, and Yahoo.
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