
Microsoft President: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers - jkuria
https://capitalandgrowth.org/answers/Article/3323627/Microsoft-President-Brad-Smith-Why-We-Urgently-Need-a-Hippocratic-Oath-for-Software-Engineers?src=hn
======
madrox
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 their users, no matter how high minded we
like to pretend to be. To say it’s on the engineer to do no harm puts them in
the tenuous position of doing the job or being replaced by someone who will.
That isn’t setting us up for success.

The Hippocratic oath sounds more altruistic than the alternatives, but good
legislation, including business audits and incentives, will have far more
impact than a software engineer swearing they won’t be evil.

~~~
tfehring
In sufficiently complex systems, you can always blame someone else if you're
motivated to do so.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IssR_J0QWr4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IssR_J0QWr4)

But ultimately there's always a software engineer involved in the creation of
software - and that's not true of any of the other roles you mentioned. Since
software engineers are necessary and sufficient to produce software, they
should _always_ be held responsible, and any oath should fall on engineers.

> _To say it’s on the engineer to do no harm puts them in the tenuous position
> of doing the job or being replaced by someone who will._

Well, yes - if there were no tradeoffs there would be no point in having an
oath to begin with. But there are software engineers today, including some on
HN, who do things more harmful and unethical than medical malpractice, and
they are personally culpable for the decision to do so - just as their
replacements would be if they refused. I would _also_ like to see laws
criminalizing those individual engineers' conduct - maybe you're alluding to
the same thing? - but an oath is a good start.

~~~
paulryanrogers
So management bears no blame for requiring illegal work be done, on pain of
termination? Said another way, engineers now need to be technical and legal
experts in the business domain?

(Remember employees in the US depend on the company for health insurance.
Saying 'no' could cost a lot more than just ones position.)

Most software engineers are not like doctors. We have little autonomy over
what is created. Our responsibility is primarily the how. And with devops
sometimes the actual deployment and maintenance itself.

~~~
skissane
> Said another way, engineers now need to be technical and legal experts in
> the business domain?

Consider something like the 737 MAX debacle – did the programmers writing the
MCAS code actually have enough aviation domain knowledge and understanding of
where the component fit in the overall system to realise it was a threat to
people's lives?

I don't know, but my guess is the most likely answer is "No".

~~~
imtringued
From my limited information the MCAS code was primarily causing problems in
association of incorrect readings by damaged sensors. Of course one could
argue that this is an engineering failure because the MCAS failed to account
for wrong sensor input but when you consider the legal implications of a MCAS
fallback there is actually not much that can be done on the software side.

The MCAS is an optional component that reduces certification and training
costs. It is definitively possible to fly the plane without accidents even
with a disabled MCAS. So why can't the MCAS be turned off automatically when
sensors fail? Because that changes the classification of the plane and
therefore requires pilots to be certified for a new machine and receive new
flight training for both MCAS and no MCAS modes.

If the software engineer was under a hippocratic oath then he would have to
refuse to build the MCAS entirely but not because the idea of an MCAS is
inherently unethical, no, he would have to refuse because the company he works
at wants to use the MCAS for a non ethical purpose (namely operate and hide
the existence of MCAS even when it is unsafe to do so).

This is basically a reverse audit but the software engineer has no authority
conduct such an audit and even if he was allowed to, the business has no
obligation to give him the necessary information to determine whether the MCAS
will be used unethically.

~~~
skissane
> he works at wants to use the MCAS for a non ethical purpose (namely operate
> and hide the existence of MCAS even when it is unsafe to do so).

You think a programmer, handed a spec and asked to implement it, can be
expected to know that their employer (or the employer's customer) wants to use
it for a "non ethical purpose"?

Again, I can't know for sure, but I doubt the programmers who wrote MCAS (who
most likely didn't even work for Boeing, but rather some subcontractor)
actually knew, or could have known, how the code fit into Boeing's larger
purposes

~~~
UnpossibleJim
With all of that being said, were these software engineers (probably
subcontractors) even given access to actual MCAS readouts or, more likely,
virtualizations of expected readouts. These people probably didn't account for
this type of faulty readout because the virtual machine never put out that
type of fault.

Most types of development in these large companies is so compartmentalized
that it's next to impossible to see the whole structure from a software
engineers prospective. You need to be at a management level to understand how
most of the pieces really come together, which is the only place where one of
these "oaths" might make an influence. At that point, however, the selection
is so goal oriented, I have a doubt as to whether or not people would take
that oath.

~~~
bumby
Generally, there is somebody (typically in software assurance or systems
engineering) who is supposed to ensure the fidelity of the simulator.
Additionally, the hazard analysis or failure modes effects analysis should
trace to specific test cases.

Of course, there’s all kinds of pressures that make these fall through the
cracks. I vaguely remember an article stating some of these documents in the
case of MCAS were not up to date

------
toohotatopic
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 times they have killed a universal software platform to
preserve theirs: Java and websites. Ironically they are pushing websites now
that the platform has shifted to mobile with objective c and Google's
variation of Java.

>According to Brad Smith, just like it is the Pope’s job to bring religion
closer to today’s technology, it is the software developer’s job to bring
technology closer to the humanities.

The Pope is to religion as is the President of the biggest software company to
software development. It is his responsibility, not theirs. Or does he see
himself as that software developer? I guess it is more a Balmer developer and
he means software engineers.

He could start by handing out software licenses / EULAS that take full
responsibility for any damage the software does cause, like any other sold
product has to do. Then, by business processes, management will take care of
the ethical issues to minimize risks.

~~~
delhanty
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...](https://www.pcgamer.com/we-did-not-sign-up-to-develop-weapons-say-
microsoft-employees-protesting-dollar479-million-hololens-army-contract/)

>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.

~~~
Diesel555
Building weapons is immoral? Tell that to the WW2 industrial complex that
supported the war.

Not building weapons for the war effort is not always right. That is an
intentional double negative because I think it's the most clear if you read it
twice. Building weapons for the war effort is sometimes right would be the
boolean negative of that statement.

>Microsoft executives have literally decided to build actual weapons.

Yep. Literally they did. Clearly all US weapons are evil in your opinion
because you disagree with all US weapon usage I'm guessing? You have to
combine the argument that they are literally making weapons with the fact that
those weapons are being used in a way you don't agree with.

Keep in mind that most of these advanced weapons they are literally making are
not designed against the current wars you most likely disagree with. They are
built, to include AI, to keep pace with advanced threats from other countries.
Allowing us to fall behind technologically, due to perceived moral black/white
issues of current wars, could lead to a whole new world in 40 years as you
make your arguments in a well protected environment. Not researching advanced
topics will lead to an asymmetric fight... not in our favor... if the enemy so
chooses.

Reference our usage of nuclear weapons. If you think that was evil, then you
wouldn't want an evil country / group of people to gain such an asymmetric
advantage. If you think it was necessary, then you want to have an asymmetric
advantage when it is necessary against an evil group. Yes I recognize the
inherent cyclical issue with the above statement. Either way, allowing all
people to gain an asymmetric advantage while we just discard all research in
hopes that others will follow is ignorant of history - war theory is a thing.

------
Someone1234
Doctors no longer take the Hippocratic Oath (because it is incompatible with a
lot of difficult situations doctors are placed in).

But more to the point: Why are we trying to shift focus from the wrongs large
multi-nationals do to individual software engineers? Plus what would the
result be if this "oath" conflicts with a manager's instructions?

Maybe we should start with Microsoft, Google, Comcast, Oracle, and similar
taking an oath to do no harm, before we push engineers under the bus for not
fighting hard enough against what they're ordered to do.

~~~
austincheney
> Why are we trying to shift focus from the wrongs large multi-nationals do to
> individual software engineers?

Because software engineers are the ones doing the actual work. By imposing an
ethical standard on the people doing the real work the multinational
executives then either accept that limitation or knowingly accept risks from
intentionally violating the spirit of that limitation.

~~~
ShinTakuya
I'm sure when someone gives you the choice between continued employment and
following the ethical standard you'll choose to follow the ethical standard.

I mean, don't get me wrong, there are clear scenarios where I think many of us
would choose to lose the job. For instance, I'll go unemployed vs directly
causing someone to die. But those slightly more ambiguous scenarios are where
we need to be enforcing it on a legislative level and the onus should be on
ALL levels of the company (engineering and management).

~~~
Kednicma
I've told upper management directly, in front of their employees, that they're
breaking the law. That was a fun day; my director directly told me to not be a
trouble-maker and to knock it off if I wanted to keep my job. Ultimately,
upper management elected to follow federal law, and I was dismissed for no
reason a year later.

It wasn't about whether or not I got to keep my job; upper management was
effectively disenfranchising other employees with their policy. Who cares
about _my_ job if it must come at the expense of my _team 's_ jobs?

Moreover, managers aren't somehow better people than engineers. They don't get
to be less moral just because they have less to do.

------
eat_veggies
It's hard to see this as anything but a way for executives to foist
responsibility upon software engineers when things go wrong (and of course,
claim credit and profit when they go right) as other commenters have pointed
out.

That said, this might actually work! If a software engineer can suffer
personal harm by working for a business with iffy ethics, then they are
incentivized to play it safe by avoiding working for those types of businesses
-- thus correcting the market by internalizing the externalities. I doubt
anyone would work for Facebook in a world with a Hippocratic Oath for Software
Engineers that has real teeth.

Put another way: pointing to decision makers instead of individual engineers
is a simple rephrasing of the Nuremberg defense, "I was just following
orders!" It is _obvious_ that we should hold leaders accountable. The question
here is whether we hold individual software engineers accountable too (they're
not mutually exclusive) and the answer is probably yes.

~~~
wolco
Wouldn't offshoring lower liability? If you can blame the developer why not
offsource that or better outsource and remove any responsibility from the
company.

------
OldHand2018
The ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct has been around for a while
and surely is a good start. But if you read through it, you'll quickly come to
the conclusion that unless leadership buys into it your only real option is to
quit your job if asked to do something you shouldn't.

[https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics](https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics)

~~~
Glyptodon
The ACM itself also won't put its code on the right side of the kind of wrongs
being perpetrated in China.

~~~
brian_herman
What do you mean?

~~~
Glyptodon
They don't want to alienate Chinese members so they go to great lengths to
prevent the code of conduct from outright prohibiting participation in the
creation of things like the systems used to control and oppress the Uyghurs,
etc.

------
m12k
The way I see it, the likely, big ethical issue with AI isn't some
Terminator/Butlerian Jihad scenario, or even mass surveillance - it's that the
wealth created by the technology will benefit the already wealthy much, much
more than everyone else. This is generally true of most technology and even
more so of the software industry (high scalability, "low" headcount, IP makes
profit shifting and tax evasion trivial). But AI is unique in potentially
enabling mass unemployment at a rate and scale never seen before in human
history. This should be a joyous event, since humanity is finally free to
enjoy the fruit of its labor without the labor part - but the way the world
works today means most of us would not be allowed any bites of that fruit
anymore.

When Bezos fires every single warehouse employee, what happens if the job they
start retraining for also gets automated away before they can even start? And
the next one, and the next one. If nobody is making a salary anymore, then it
doesn't matter how much lower the prices are on Amazon (due to being produced
in automated factories and shipped from automated warehouses) unless Jeff
decides to reduce those prices all the way down to 'free'. At that point the
assumptions underlying the world's economy would break down in a way that
makes a corona shutdown look like a mild hiccup.

No software engineer is going to be able to do anything to help alleviate
this. If you want to do something about this, you need to go into politics,
not tech.

------
tdeck
> There are no common ethics codes to determine how lethal autonomous weapons
> and systems that are developed for the military should be used once they end
> up in the hands of civilians.

It's interesting to me that this just presumes developing these autonomous
weapons systems in the first place is ethical. I understand there is a
difference of opinion on this ethical point, but it immediately frames the
discussion pretty far away from the Hippocratic oath's requirement to abstain
from causing harm.

~~~
AmericanChopper
> pretty far away from the Hippocratic oath's requirement to abstain from
> causing harm

So does abortion and euthanasia, and probably plenty of other practices as
well. Both of those are without doubt harm-causing practices, with their
related points of controversy primarily revolving around whether the harm that
is caused is worthwhile in the context of the alternative being a potentially
greater harm.

Putting aside the fact that the Hippocratic oath is not actually a relevant
part of modern medicine (modern doctors are accountable to comprehensive,
codified sets of ethics), the fact that there is no such thing as a set of
common ethics by which people choose to live their lives kinda points out the
futility of this idea.

One person could say developing weapons is bad because they cause harm,
another could say it’s good because they can be used to reduce harm that would
have otherwise been caused. Who’s right? Neither of them. That’s just two
people with different opinions. I would personally suggest that establishing
moral authorities like can often be harmful, because lacking any objective
truths, it’s a topic people should generally be left to make up their own
minds about.

Am I right or wrong? Who’s to say? I’m just a person with an opinion, and so
is anybody who would want to agree or disagree with me.

~~~
frobozz
> So does abortion and euthanasia, and probably plenty of other practices as
> well.

A less controversial example would be something like chemotherapy. In fact, a
lot of treatments for terminal and chronic ailments are pretty harmful.

~~~
AmericanChopper
All 3 of those examples are actually covered by the “original” Hippocratic
Oath (which probably wasn’t written by Hippocrates, incidentally).

> Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will
> I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to
> cause abortion.

Chemo is obviously a bit different though, because the potential harm caused
by denying abortion or euthanasia is (generally speaking) the potential to
deny somebody the right to exercise a form of personal agency over their
body/life. The controversy isn’t really a medical one.

The Oath also doesn’t really address treatments that have potentially harmful
side effects, and it’s debated whether the oath allows doctors to perform
surgery. It’s basically not fit for purpose in 2020. If you wanted to suggest
that software engineers adopt a code of ethics similar to that of doctors,
what you’d be really suggesting is something like “We need a AMA Code of
Medical Ethics for software engineers”. Which obviously doesn’t have the same
broad appeal and simplicity of an oath.

~~~
frobozz
That was essentially my point. With euthanasia and abortion you will find
plenty of people who would call them unambiguously harmful and think they
should be banned outright, regardless of context.

You'd be hard pressed to find people who want to abolish the entire field of
oncology on the grounds that the treatments are horrible.

It's absurd to take the above-stated "requirement to abstain from causing
harm" as a hard restriction out of context without taking into account the
main point of the profession which is to help the sick.

The logical conclusion of considering "do no harm" as inviolable above all
else is that doctors would have to restrict their treatments to homeopathy and
compassionate smiles.

------
coding123
So reading the comments. I am on the side of having business owners taking
some kind of oath, not software engineers. If a software engineer was
programming IE around the time that MS was hit by regulators years ago, and
this "software engineer" oath was in place, would the software engineers being
asked to code a web browser be at fault for the wrong-doings of the company?

It just seems wrong for someone that has been asked to "write a web browser"
to be at fault for anything.

What about someone asked to code up a voice prompt on something that answers
the phone for a telemarketing company. And said company later uses the code to
do illegal spam robocalls instead of what they told the developer they were
doing with it?

What about if a software developer that writes code to turn off and on a
sprinkler system by phone is later convicted of writing the code for a bomb
that blows up a building?

What about if a software developer writes code that matches human faces for
the purposes of automatically unlocking his door at his home, ends up being
open sourcing it, but the developer is arrested for that software being
deployed on a drone that murders specific people?

What about if a software developer that is asked to install the above Face Rec
system on a drone but is told it's designed to take pictures of people it
knows at a birthday party, and is later switched out to trigger a machine gun.

~~~
eat_veggies
There are not two sides, because _both_ management and engineering should face
consequences for building harmful software. And I'm not sure it's appropriate
to test these "what ifs" as if looking for logical flaws in such a system,
because a well-functioning court and jury should easily be able answer these
questions, and I'm sure you had the "correct" answers in mind when you wrote
them. Whether or not our courts and juries are currently well-functioning
enough to support something like this is a different question, but we should
strive for it.

In any case, we already have laws like this! And they're not controversial! If
you commit war crimes by killing people with a shovel under the orders of your
superiors, _both you and your superiors are responsible_ , but the
manufacturer of the shovel obviously isn't responsible for what you did unless
they advertised the shovel's skull-bashing capabilities.

~~~
coding123
But what is harmful software? Today, while there are arguments about facebook
being too addictive, it's really just competition between platforms, it's not
everyone's opinion that the software engineers at facebook should be liable at
this point for making an addictive algorithm. At some uncertain point in time,
there's the possibility that facebook will be sued for the addictiveness and
lose. Should that happen, I don't see why the software engineers should be
partially to blame.

~~~
eat_veggies
If Facebook gets sued for its addictiveness and loses, then that would be a
pretty solid judgment of its harm, wouldn't it? And it'd be up to the court to
decide whether the engineers (and which ones) were complicit. There is room
for nuance here.

> I don't see why the software engineers should be partially to blame.

Because they chose to build it! Software engineers aren't ignorant and
helpless executors of instructions. They are responsible for what they build.

~~~
coding123
That makes no sense. That's the exact angle I'm trying to argue isn't
feasible. It should absolutely be the corporate entity that takes the blame
for things like that. If we were to change things to make the engineers
directly responsible, we're just adding an entire industry that's not
necessary.

We'll end up creating an entire class of insurance for software development
liability. It doesn't really change anything except again, raise the cost and
shift burdens.

------
sjellis
Brad Smith has been with Microsoft since 1993, and is one of the lawyers that
enabled the business practices that made Microsoft notorious, and the target
of multiple legal actions. Microsoft only settled with the DOJ in 2002. The
company pursued policies of forced upgrades to Windows 10 and aggressive use
of telemetry whilst he was president.

Feel free to tell us how your professional ethics as a lawyer enabled you to
make change at Microsoft before you were general counsel and president, Brad.
Or after you got the top jobs.

~~~
adaml_623
So you're saying that since Lawyers have been around longer as a profession
then they should demonstrate the equivalent oath and how to make it work
before software engineers.

Sounds brilliant!

------
natch
Perhaps Brad Smith can let us know when we live in a time when it's not true
that all three branches of the US government, to pick on just one country, are
daily disrespecting their oaths to uphold the constitution. And then we can
talk about the efficacy of oaths.

In other words, oaths aren't worth much in the real world, apparently, as much
as we might like to think they should be.

It would be troubling if Brad Smith isn't aware of this. He wouldn't be the
first once-respected person to go off the deep end:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins).

I have to give Brad the benefit of the doubt and assume something was lost in
translation; possibly he is being misquoted or quoted out of context.

But even assuming we could agree on a shared, always-in-sync definition of
harm, and even assuming oaths worked all the time, there are plenty of
competent people, whatever label we give them, who will design and implement
systems without having sworn any such oath, and countries and organizations
(including DAOs) that will employ those people. And the first two assumptions
are already a bridge too far.

------
abj
We need a Hippocratic Oath for those that manage and deploy capital.

A Hippocratic Oath for only Software Engineers is addressing the symptom, not
the cause.

Most of us don't wake up and think, "How can I make user's life worse today?".

We need to fix the incentives if we want to fix the behavior.

We need to give Software Engineers writing spyware the option to say no and
still feed their families. We need saying," This is unethical and I can't
help," to be a valid second option.

~~~
jojobas
The key incentive is cash. As long as doing sinister things can pay, there
will be people doing it.

~~~
smabie
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.

~~~
jojobas
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.

~~~
badRNG
> 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.

------
A4ET8a8uTh0
I am little worried this will sound glib, but how about we have an oath/pledge
( w/e you want to call it ) for decision makers at the company. Otherwise
putting onus on engineers is, at best, silly.

------
01100011
Software engineering isn't medicine. It isn't that difficult to learn and you
can wield many of the advantages without much training. If software folks
refuse to assist with morally questionable tasks, those tasks will be
compartmentalized and the unethical components will be handed off to people
willing to do the job.

Sadly, just about everyone in ML/AI is contributing to an easily weaponized
technology. Every time you make it easier to train a network, every time you
make it faster to train a network, every time you improve an image recognition
algorithm, every time you improve the latency/jitter of inference... you're
contributing to the pile of knowledge which will be leveraged to control
populations or enable military action. Most people stay unaware of it and just
focus on the benefits. Some of us just grow to accept it.

~~~
ex_amazon_sde
> Software engineering isn't medicine. It isn't that difficult to learn

I would never hire someone that treats software engineering as something
easier that medicine or other branches of engineering.

~~~
randomdata
Easy to say when you've never hired anyone.

The parent is right. Software engineering is advantaged by a much more
simplistic feedback loop. Software's "Hello, World" is validated in
milliseconds. Medicine's "Hello, World" could take 30 years of clinical trials
to ensure that you haven't killed anyone. It is easy because it is quick,
allowing a greater understanding within an equal amount of time.

In fact, the adage of years of experience comes from learning that actually
take years to encounter different circumstances and see the results play out
in order to fully understand what you're dealing with. This is almost never a
problem for software engineers, especially in the learning phase. Software
engineers can gain "years of experience" each day by seeing the results of
what they are doing in practically real-time.

~~~
ex_amazon_sde
> Easy to say when you've never hired anyone.

Funny how you can make that statement.

------
creato
I think a lot of the recent focus on "AI ethics" is just self-aggrandizement.

I also think a lot of people here are overestimating how broad the agreement
is on what is ethical and what is not (and thus what would be prevented from
happening under such a "Hippocratic Oath").

Examples being: Microsoft/GitHub's work with ICE, Google's China search
engine, use of AI in military applications

I personally have a strong opinion on some of those, but I'm not delusional
enough to think that there are no competent software engineers that disagree
with me.

~~~
throwaways885
For each of those examples, there are also positive social justice arguments
if you look at them in different directions:

\- Microsoft/GitHub's work with ICE [prevents illegal migration, saving those
workers from a life of wage slavery]

\- Google's China search engine [gives more information than otherwise
would've been available]

\- use of AI in military applications [can save lives by no longer bombing
civilians where it can be avoided]

------
frobozz
The relevant difference between medicine and software development is that
doctors provide a service and software developers create a product.

A doctor's responsibility is solely to the patient. When the treatment ends,
the doctor has done their job. They may be responsible for long-term damage
from the treatment, but that's still about something the doctor did
themselves. It's like being responsible for your software randomly running
amok and deleting random files on a user's computer.

When a software developer has developed some software, that product continues
to exist and can be used by anyone who can run it, to do anything the software
is capable of.

Turning this around, given that the doctor's "product" is a healthier patient,
it would be like making doctors responsible for the evils committed by
patients that they have saved.

It's easy to come up with obvious unethical scenarios, but a lot of harm can
come from less predictable unethical uses. If you make your software easy to
use, the result is that people outside of any ethically-aware, license-
controlled bubble can use it. Where does the responsibility end?

The developers of Excel and Access have almost certainly indirectly
contributed to evil software.

------
puzzledobserver
Is there evidence that doctors and lawyers are, by virtue of their oaths,
codes of conduct, and background study of ethics, more ethical, moral, and
upright than members of the general population?

Also, whose ethics would such a Hippocratic Oath advance? For every privacy-
conscious person saying that encryption-everywhere is good, there is a law
enforcement officer speaking of reduced abilities to solve crimes.

Imagine a software engineer who has been asked to place a backdoor in some
software. Is there any piece of uncontroversial advice which you can give
them?

And like several previous commenters have asked, could this be a way to shift
responsibility from institutions and their management cadre to individual
developers?

~~~
mar77i
> Imagine a software engineer who has been asked to place a backdoor in some
> software.

I imagine such an engineer just gets a development plan and doesn't get to see
the bigger picture, implying the backdoor. It might only get enabled on
integration into a larger codebase, and nobody out of the loop will be able to
extrapolate its existence from what they get to know for sure.

Hence I completely agree with the argument of shifting responsibility to the
developers. Seems like MS is selling more of that eyewash again.

~~~
Leherenn
I disagree. I only have one point of data from past experience (not a
backdoor, but working on a potentially unethical system), but I would say most
developers know exactly what they are doing, or they know deep down but don't
try to clarify in order to absolve themselves.

If we go back to backdoors, yes, sometimes, in the simplest cases (e.g. a
"root" account), it might get in prod through trickery. But anything more
complex and you need to know what you are trying to achieve.

------
jdc
I'm guessing Brad Smith hasn't seen the _Tethics_ episode of _Silicon Valley_.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfRUQh_EHoQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfRUQh_EHoQ)

------
scarmig
It just seems pointless to me. Microsoft collaborates with the PRC, including
governmental projects that go well into deeply questionable territory.
Presumably Brad Smith would stop those if he could, since he's selling himself
as an ethics guru. But if the President of Microsoft himself is unable to
scrub out these ethical blackspots, what would software engineers taking an
ill-defined oath do?

~~~
throw_m239339
Microsoft itself imposed their OS by very questionable means, unethical means,
I will not be lectured about ethics by any Microsoft bigshot to begin with, as
a software developer. Especially when none of the Microsoft execs made amend
for their little schemes in the 80's and the 90's.

------
tehabe
I think we also should finally abandon the idea that companies are only here
to make a profit and should ignore all other factors when doing business. That
doesn't mean they should make no profit at all but it means that they also
should consider external costs as if they were internal ones. This is true for
the environment, privacy, data protection, employees, and many other things.

~~~
FractalParadigm
I think something like this would be more easily 'enforced' if the current
punishments weren't so low they got factored into the "cost of doing
business."

------
cassalian
IMO having a hippocratic oath for software engineers is entirely pointless.
There are plenty of people who would say the words with no intention of living
up to them - not everyone is going to share your values.

I can't say for sure, but I have a feeling that the hippocratic oath is not
what's stopping an unethical doctor from behaving unethically. Instead, it's
the risk of lawsuits and loss of their license to practice medicine that keeps
them in line.

I just don't think software could match the very real consequences to
unethical behaviour that doctors face. We don't have a concept of a "licensed
software engineer", and even if we did, there's nothing stopping an unethical
engineer from working on their own. Doctors can be blackballed from hospitals,
clinical trials, etc. Are we going to blackball software engineers from
touching computers?

The above being said, I do believe that software engineers should try to be
ethical. However, I do not think there's any mechanism that could be
implemented that could force this behaviour, and any attempt to do so is
simply a way for its promoters to say "look how good I am", and less so an
honest attempt at making the world a better place.

~~~
ecmascript
For sure, I am one of these people you mention. I feel very little to no
loyalty to any company I have ever worked for. The reason is that they can and
would fire me at any time if the conditions where right.

Hence, I am ready to move to another position at any time if the conditions
are right (pay, benefits etc). If they want me to take an oath I would
probably not take the job today but if they would pay me a ridiculous amount
for example, I would most likely take the job and just say the oath or
whatever you have to do and just never care about it again.

Just because I am forced to say something doesn't mean I believe it. Maybe
it's because I am a natural rebel that hates to be told things, despises
"mission statements" or "company values" but I feel like there is a lot of
people like me.

------
hyko
_It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever
consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would
instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could
be given as a parameter._ -Nathaniel Borenstein

~~~
alacombe
static void destroyBaghdad() { destroyCity("Baghdad"); }

Here, it's done.

~~~
adaml_623
20% success rate there.

[https://geotargit.com/called.php?qcity=Baghdad](https://geotargit.com/called.php?qcity=Baghdad)

~~~
alacombe
No, no, it's working as intended. Product Management failed to properly define
the spec, the software works as defined.

------
swyx
we already have one that is pretty close - Ted Nelson from his 1974 book Dream
Machines:

The purpose of computers is human freedom.

I am going to help make people free through computers.

I will not help the computer priesthood confuse and bully the public.

I will endeavor to explain patiently what computer systems really do.

I will not give misleading answers to get people off my back, like “Because
that’s the way computers work” instead of “Because that’s the way I designed
it.”

I will stand firm against the forces of evil.

I will speak up against computer systems that are oppressive, insulting, or
unkind, and do the best I can to improve or replace them, if I cannot prevent
them from being bought or created in the first place.

I will fight injustice, complication, and any company that makes things
difficult on purpose.

I will do all I can to further human understanding, especially through the new
visualizing tools of interactive computer graphics.

I will do what I can to make systems easy to understand, interactive wherever
possible, and fun for the user.

I will try not to make fun of another user’s favorite computer language, even
if it is COBOL or BASIC.

------
justinclift
We should aim for having a "Hippocratic Oath" in place for the CEO's, board,
and other business leadership too.

They're the one's who's "interesting" ethics are responsible for the things
mentioned in the article.

The engineers wouldn't generally even attempt to implement the concerns in the
article unless directed by their organisational higher-ups.

~~~
A4ET8a8uTh0
Quite. Some of the most egregious ethics lapses come from 'management
decisions'. Some infamously immortalized by Challenger story (
[https://freakonomics.com/2011/06/01/launching-into-
unethical...](https://freakonomics.com/2011/06/01/launching-into-unethical-
behavior-lessons-from-the-challenger-disaster/) ), where manager effectively
overruled engineers, who explicitly told him it was a bad idea. Oh yeah, he
called it a 'management decision' too.

------
MattGaiser
The challenge here is the entire software engineering compensation and career
model.

Let's consider Boeing. Aviation is complicated and takes a long time to learn.
Good software engineers are constantly moving jobs to boost compensation, so
Boeing would retain them for 1-2 years at most unless it were willing to
radically increase its compensation year over year.

I have spent 1 year in my job at a parking software organization. I have
learned very little about how the business works and couldn't tell you much
about the software I work on beyond the features built while I have been
there. Most of my team has been there just a year or two and they don't know
either. Give me all the training you want, but I know very little about how
any of this fits into the business model or how it is going to be used and I
will probably never know before I leave. And if we use the median tenure of
engineers for my organization, I am arguably scheduled to leave.

A friend is at a medium sized tech company. He spent 6 months on one project,
spent 6 months on another, and now is interested in moving to a third. He
works on "some cloud service, not quite sure which."

Another friend is just fed tickets, completes the tickets, and otherwise isn't
even sure what his software is used for and what kind of companies buy it. He
has been there a year.

So, sure, you can create an oath, but how many software engineers are going to
ever know enough to object to something? It is maybe 50%?

To understand the bigger picture in many cases, engineers would need to stay
on their projects to for 2-4 years. They would need to be there from the
design phase to the implementation and deployment phase, as well as the day to
day use phase. They would need to know a lot more about what the business
actually is in many cases. In aviation, they would need to have engineers stay
for 6-8 years.

How does that happen when 3 years at a company is considered a long time and
plenty stay 1-2 years?

------
nabla9
"It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever
consent to write a `DestroyBaghdad` procedure. Basic professional ethics would
instead require him to write a `DestroyCity` procedure, to which `Baghdad`
could be given as a parameter.

\--- Nathaniel S. Borenstein,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Borenstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Borenstein)

------
imtringued
The way I see this is that someone is trying to shift responsibility away to
someone who has even less power and is now in a vulnerable position.

Smells like diesel gate where executives claimed that they did not know about
the cheating device. It is entirely possible to force subordinates to do
things in secret in a way that cannot be traced back to the original decision
maker. If there is money to be made it's going to happen.

------
darepublic
What an asinine suggestion. Of all people a president of microsoft punting
responsibility down to the people simply following your orders. This comes
across as a scheme to corner out newcomers to AI and make it so only well
connected multinationals are able to control this tech.

------
thethethethe
this is absurd. We should not be putting the onus on the engineers to practice
their trade ethically when they often have no control over the decisions being
made at their company. Additionally, those software engineers do not profit
from unethical practice nearly as much as the decision makers and executives.

This is especially rich coming from a faboulsy wealthy executive of a company
engaged in many unethical activities

------
anonytrary
Why should software developers take the oath? Half of us are already working
for morally bankrupt companies. The companies should take those oaths and stop
building products that ultimately produce negative externality.

------
euske
I think what we should focus on, instead of ethics or humanity, is things like
transparency, open discussion and clear feedback, etc. We can't really tell
what's exactly ethical or human when the situation is changing this quickly.
What we can ensure, though, is that a process exists that can spot and fix
issues at hand in a timely manner, publicly. It's a bit like OODA for ethics.
I think a similar system would be needed for the US police system too. Be it a
company or police, when its secrecy is of its utmost importance, ethics cannot
be expected.

------
dragonwriter
The Hippocratic Oath is mostly irrelevant, so, no, we don't need it.

If he means we need a professional code of ethics, and the organized
professional discipline that makes such a code meaningful, sure, maybe.

But it's odd for a software executive to make that case, since the only reason
such a code would be necessary in software would be to provide a
countervailing force so that developers resist unethical demands from their
employers. IOW, if it weren't for the lack of ethics by Smith’s peer group,
their subordinates wouldn’t need new constraints.

------
de6u99er
"The fish rots from the head", comes to my mind.

What we need is ethics in management.

------
Upvoter33
Well, it sure is tough to know the outcomes of what you create, however many
oaths you take. Long ago, someone invented a pencil; people have written a lot
of terrible things with pencils. More recently, people invented neural
networks to recognize handwritten digits; now people are using networks like
that to do terrible things. An oath won't solve the problem; we need laws and
governance and more to ensure society uses technology safely and for good.

------
DiJu519
Kind of sounds like the P.ENG designation.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Engineers_Ontar...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Engineers_Ontario)
[https://www.peo.on.ca/licence-applications/become-
profession...](https://www.peo.on.ca/licence-applications/become-professional-
engineer/professional-practice-exam)

------
tehsauce
"Engineering ethics" is a fallacy as it implies that engineers have high level
influence on the goals set by organizations. If lockheed martin trained all of
its missile engineers in ethics would they suddenly start building bombs that
burst with flowers? Obviously not. Engineers are paid to design things against
a very specific set of requirements. If an average engineer pushes back on
ethical grounds they will simply be replaced.

~~~
matz1
Ethics are subjective and always evolving. I think Engineering ethics is not
to tell you what to build or not to build but rather to tech you what is the
likely outcome if you decided to build x or not to build x. Based on that its
up to you to decide whatever to do or not do it.

~~~
tehsauce
I'm not sure what your engineering experience is, but I'm pretty certain that
>80% of engineers are not in a position to refuse to work and quit their job
without a severe impact on their career. And the same goes for managers and
directors, all the way up to the top. Fail to explore a new technology your
competitor is already working on? You've just damaged your company and all
your employees. The only way to deal with these kinds of issues is regulation.
Classic tragedy of the commons.

~~~
matz1
Of course every decision in life will always have its own trade off.

Sure it can have severe impact on their career but its still a choice whether
to do or not to do, quit or not to quit

------
blunte
Why should this concept be limited to just AI? How many developers knowingly
enabled or directly wrote software for predatory companies like Facebook,
(sometimes/mostly?) Google, sometimes Apple, historically often Microsoft,
many of the large banks, Verizon and ATT and Comcast (and probably other major
telcos), debt collection agencies, payday lenders, and on and on.

I'm quite certain that many HN readers knowingly contribute to companies that
do plenty of evil. Heck, some of the HN crowd have created startups that
specifically do gray things just for money.

Practically speaking, there's no way to know that your efforts will not
somehow result in doing harm to others. Rather than taking some oath which
frankly has little meaning without full knowledge of the outcomes, I think it
would be more beneficial for everyone to make a concerted effort to get out in
the world - see places that are in severe poverty or political turmoil. Meet
other people who are very different from our bubble. Then we start to have an
idea how even some of our good intentions can result in worse situations for
others (such as giving lots of clothes away to have shipped to Africa).

~~~
Mandatum
So true. I'd say much, much more harm has been done by regular CRUD
programmers than any others. You really think AI is going to introduce
regulation around this?

They're just going to treat it like munitions, because that's all the
lawmakers know.

~~~
blunte
I suspect this is somewhat a problem of age and experience. When you are
younger (at least typically speaking... ignoring the rare exceptional people),
you get caught up in the job at hand. It is new to you, and the environment is
exciting. You focus your attention and your effort narrowly.

If you have someone to shake you from your myopia, or you get older and start
to gain perspective, you question your efforts and their potential outcomes.

To be fair though, at the lowest CRUD level, it's no worse than someone who
builds roads or cooks food. We cannot reasonably consider nor police the use
of those roads or the meals we make.

------
PJDK
To my mind there are two types of ethics around being a software engineer. The
first is just normal ethics, and it applies equally to everyone else - am I
working towards something I think is ethical? For this reason someone might
choose not to work at PornHub, or Facebook or Boeing or whatever. That's a
personal choice. If you want to change the world so PornHub doesn't exist
anymore, the solution isn't to force software developers into an oath that
forbids it, but to do normal, boring politics.

There are professional ethics, but they are much more tightly bound - more
comparable to an accountant's ethics than a doctor. For me that will be along
the lines of

\- I will not use trickery in a demo to decieve others about the progress of a
project

\- I will report all bugs and mistakes I find and make, regardless of any
personal cost this may bring on me.

\- I will be honest in my dealings with non technical people, and do my upmost
to accurately represent the work I have done and the work I plan to do.

\- I will make decisions and advocate for changes for the benefit of the
codebase and organisation, not for the benefit of my own CV

... And so on - you can pretty quickly get into controversial territory I'm
sure.

~~~
aiethicsthread
>I will not use trickery in a demo to decieve others about the progress of a
project

This is a good starting point. All those who've used dodgy marketing to
convince investors that their machine learning is AI and so we're _' first
generation of humans to endow computers with the ability to make decisions'_
have lent their words to a culture war with no basis in fact.

------
didip
I hate to be a debby downer but this is nothing but virtue signaling.

How can we enforce this? Strong individual ethics without ability to do
anything about it will simply make engineers feel helpless. And that’s just
going to hurt happiness at the workplace.

~~~
UK-Al05
You would need a software professional body that can ban people from
practising professionally

------
Balgair
The Order of the Engineer is instructive here: [https://order-of-the-
engineer.org/](https://order-of-the-engineer.org/)

The oath states:

"I am an Engineer. In my profession, I take deep pride. To it, I owe solemn
obligations.

As an engineer, I pledge to practice integrity and fair dealing, tolerance and
respect, and to uphold devotion to the standards and dignity of my profession.
I will always be conscious that my skill carries with it the obligation to
serve humanity by making the best use of the Earth's precious wealth.

As an engineer, I shall participate in none but honest enterprises. When
needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given, without reservation, for the
public good. In the performance of duty, and in fidelity to my profession, I
shall give my utmost."

The Order of the Engineer started in Canada in 1925 as the Iron Ring. It was
imported into the US in 1970, with many changes.

Worn on the pinky finger of the working hand (depending on dis/ability), the
ring is meant to drag on drawings and leave subtle marks as it ages and rusts.
It's facets are meant to be noticeable, to remind engineers of their duties
and obligations. Though I cannot find the source, I have always heard that the
original Canadian Iron Rings were made out of steel from a collapsed bridge
that was lethally designed.

The US version is significantly different, as engineers are licensed _very_
differently in Canada and the US.

The US based Order of the Engineer is fairly accommodating to change and
updates. Bioengineers are welcome to take the oath, for instance.

Perhaps the US based rings for software engineers should be made of the Uber
car that killed that poor woman in Arizona, Therac-25, or Theranos machines.

------
SllX
Translation: we need to increase barriers of entry to working in this field by
spreading the social cancer that is vocational licensing to software
engineering.

~~~
trimbo
How do you hire an architect to design your house? Pick a doctor? Pick a
lawyer?

~~~
SllX
That’s a bad faith question asked in an attempt to setup a straw man argument
and you know it, and I know it, so cut the crap. Worry about the guy writing
software for all the nuclear power plants we’re not building, not the guy who
makes webshit, word processors and compilers for a living.

Architects, Doctors and Lawyers are closer to one extreme, you can make as
strong a case for licensing them as you can for not licensing them. Software
engineers are vocationally with the florists, where licensing is less a matter
of ethics or workmanship or safety as it is an artificial government
sanctioned means of preventing new competition from entering the market, or
only allowing it in a controlled and revocable manner.

~~~
pixl97
Writers of open source software are winding up to one day spin in their graves
reading the comments of the authoritarians demanding software licensing in
here.

~~~
SllX
Agreed. There is no professional class so enlightened that it won’t use
whatever means available, governmental or otherwise, to insulate itself from
competitive pressures.

------
andrewfong
I'm not against the idea, but analogizing to medicine isn't great. There are a
number of challenged that need sorting before an oath is feasible:

* Medicine is thousands of years old. Software is decades old. There's still a lot we don't know.

* Medicine involves a lot of repeat situations, do you can set precedent and learn over time. Software isn't always new, but there are more novel applications than in medicine.

* The patient is, generally speaking, at the center of a doctor's ethical universe. It's not clear who the "patient" is for engineers. Users are often malicious. You can just say engineers must consider "society as a whole" but that's kind of a cop out, and not useful for trickier situations.

~~~
wolco
The patient is the company.

So the oath would be to do no harm to the company.

~~~
andrewfong
I don't think that's what the original article is getting at though. It talks
about user privacy rights for instance, and it would be harmful to certain
companies to not spy on their users, even if it's the right thing to do for
society at large.

------
Shared404
"Don't be evil" [until it's inconvenient not to be]

------
throw_m239339
How about we make the executives and managers take an oath?

Engineers mostly do what they are told, it's too easy to let them carry the
moral burden while higher ups can ask whatever they want out of them. It's too
easy to shift the blame on developers.

------
dmarchand90
There's the Archimedean oath
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedean_Oath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedean_Oath)

Considering the life of Archimedes of Syracuse who illustrated the ambiguous
potential of technology since the Antiquity, Considering the growing
responsibility of engineers and scientists towards societies and nature,
Considering the importance of the ethical problems stemming from technology
and its applications, Today, I commit to the following statements and shall
endeavor to reach towards the ideal that they represent:

I shall practice for the good of humankind, respecting human rights1 and the
environment.

I shall recognize the responsibility for my actions, after informing myself to
the best of my abilities, and shall in no case discharge my responsibilities
on another person.

I shall endeavor to perfect my professional abilities When choosing and
implementing projects, I shall remain wary of their context and their
consequences, notably in their technical, economic, social and ecological
aspects. I shall give particular attention to projects with military
applications.

I shall contribute, to the extent of my abilities, to promote equitable
relationships between people and to support the development of economically
weaker countries.

I shall transmit, with rigor and honesty, to discerningly chosen
interlocutors, any important information, if it constitutes a gain for society
or if its retention constitutes a danger for others. In the latter case, I
shall ensure that the communication yields concrete action.

I shall not let myself be governed by the defense of my own interests or those
of my corporation.

I shall endeavor, to the best of my abilities, to lead my company to take into
account the preoccupations of the present oath.

I shall practice my profession in complete intellectual honesty, with
conscience and dignity.

I solemnly take this oath, freely and on my honor."

1\. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United
Nations (10 December 1948)

------
janstenpickle
Here's an anecdote echoing many of the other comments:

I attended an event about AI ethics a couple of years ago, many of the
panelists were getting very excited about the upcoming AI eithics guidlines
from the IEEE and how it would set a gold standard for state level AI
development. They were completely unaware that the IEEE already has a general
code of ethics[0], which many governments implicitly require engineers in
certain roles to ignore.

[0]
[https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html](https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html)

------
pvtmert
The missing point:

You can't become surgeon by Googling and slicing things

While you can become /Software Engineer/ entirely by yourself (self taught)

~~~
MattGaiser
BloodOverflow:

"The inflating red bag stopped inflating. What do I do?"

------
exmicrosoldier
This seems like "noble virtue signaling" for software executives.

It isn't taking a five why's approach to the problem of ethical failures in
the industry. It won't fix root cause problems.

We don't need a Hippocratic oath for Software Engineers. We need laws and
regulations around some things. And then the government needs to penalize
C-level execs, the board, and major shareholders for violating them.

The problem is that laws apply to individual without significant financial
resources, sporadically to the truly wealthy, almost never to corporations,
and never to the shareholders.

Trying to fix a broken system with a "Hippocratic oath" for software
developers is like trying to fix school shootings by making sure the doctors
will save the school shooters as much as the victims.

Microsoft could still be profitable and fix way more bugs in the software than
they do - they choose the higher profit margin over "the good of humanity" all
day every day, and it is the executives and major shareholders that make that
own that decision.

------
eftychis
In Greece, we do take an engineering oath to graduate: in summary to nurture
and expand science and to improve and protect human welfare. In a similar
fashion, in Canada they have the iron ring
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring).

IEEE and almost all of the serious engineering organizations have a code of
ethics.

Accountability of the management is what is missing. If a hospital management
instructs their doctors to skip costly steps in a procedure, they are going to
jail. If any engineering company screws up and lives are hurt, lost or damaged
somehow (e.g. privacy), they issue a public apology; rinse and repeat.

Which is ironic, as "a doctor might screw up and kill a few patients, but if
you as an engineer screw up you can kill thousands." Because you are not there
holding their hands when people get hurt, get their identity stolen, their
money or lose their lives due to a bug or critical error, does not make you
less responsible.

The problem with our field is that i) it has immaterial direct results, ii)
big failures have big money behind them. The first makes it hard to impossible
for the public to understand the implications and does not excite terror if
you are not directly involved. How many people run in fear hearing about "x
credit company got hacked"? The latter reason implies that there is an
incentive for no punishment -- similarly to banking institutions in 2007.

I think we are unfortunately a lot of the times swaying between being a
statistic ([https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-
statistic/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/)) or
having insignificant or incomprehensible impact for us to gain legal power to
push back. Recall that deep learning, distributed ledgers, etc are magic or
demonized by the public.

P.S. One could argue that not all software developers are trained engineers
etc, but I am not buying that. As a lot have noted even if a person is not
academically trained they can take an oath, but nothing is going to change in
the responsibility realm.

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

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

------
guest89761
All traditional degrees that have "engineering" in title are usually regulated
professions in every country, same as those of doctors and lawers. You have to
learn the local law that applies to your domain and are qualified and
recognized by the state after you get a degree to work locally there.

Software engineering is one of the few where word “engineering” is not really
engineering. Software engineers neither know the law, not are trained for
that, work globally and have no idea what laws apply. This has its own
benefits and drawbacks (such as, less protection - anyone can take your job,
no matter the degree, but you can also work anywhere).

For “software engineers” to be real engineers in order to take any oath, the
education system and degrees for software need to change and match those of
other local protected engineering degrees, with all benefits and drawbacks of
a state recognized profession that can by carried only locally. None of
current developers matches any of that.

It could be a possible future, but it may also kill talent as know it in
software. The software market dynamics of today exist because everyone that
can write code can claim they are “software engineers” and they only need to
write code to prove that. You cannot claim you are a doctor, just because you
think you have skills to heal people and prove that by healing out a few.

------
ogou
Yeah ok. Only if it works as an escape clause for NDAs. If we can’t talk about
the chain of management decisions that led to being asked to implement
something unethical, then a personal oath is only something to be used against
us. If an ethically conflicted engineer ever asks “why” they always get the
same answer, “because it’s what the client/department head/CTO wants.” I have
never worked at a company that takes any moral implications of technology
seriously. Money rules all.

------
jb775
Should probably start with a Hippocratic Oath for the c-suite execs.

------
rafiki6
Great, if we will take software engineers to task over their ethics, let's
form a professional regulatory body that licenses them and a union or advocacy
org while we are at it. Tech companies have benefited tremendously from the
way the profession is currently setup. I'd love to see how they respond when
they can't make SWEs dance like monkeys in their interviews to get a job.
Suddenly, outsourcing the work would become a lot less possible too.

------
naveen99
Doctors can’t be told how to practice medicine by non md managers.

------
LockAndLol
Sure, let's let the decision makers off the hook because they're untouchable
anyway thanks to the system they created - a system we keep agreeing to
everytime we buy their products and vote for their puppets.

But it's not the decision makers who should be targeted. The workers told
selling the product aren't a problem. The workers marketing the product aren't
the problem. No. The workers told to make the product.

These workers have such easy, stable, and wealthy lives that they cannot be
pressured in any way to make something harmful. They are so intelligent, so
smart, so perceptive that the truth can't ever be hidden from them. In a world
governed by relative and fuzzy morals and ethics, with few absolutes and a
plethora of grays, these guardians of the righteous should take an oath to be
better; to take responsibility; to uphold these virtues; to lead by example;
to let no more evil pass under their gold hands as they type in the language
of the creators (perl).

All you have to do to become one of these divine creatures? Take an online
programming course and tick a box stating you read and understood the ter...
uh... oath. Yeah. Oath. Because that's what's gonna solve the problem.

------
chmln
> If you look today at who is studying an AP course for computer science in an
> American high school, what you will see is a group of people that are more
> male, white, urban, and more affluent than the country as a whole. That is
> what we need to address

As a male, white, urban, and affluent, perhaps he could demand to get replaced
by a POC like some corporate board members have done, instead of endlessly
yapping and proudly showing off his self-hating racism.

------
timwaagh
Maybe we need a hippocratic oat for microsoft CEO's. Or maybe there already is
one, like the one we have for bankers. But somehow they are still corrupt, big
surprise. Let's just accept people do bad things and empty promises are
worthless. the penalty for oathbreaking in ancient greece was death or the
extinction of the family line (harsh, i know). that's very different from
modern 'oaths'.

------
quotemstr
No, we need no such thing. Any such "Hippocratic Oath" would just become a
statement of loyalty to the politics of the people in charge of drafting and
administering the oath. The recent and still-raw experience of activists in
tech companies damaging their coworkers and their company under the guise of
"ethics" should tell us that this word is just a sneaky disguise for politics.

------
blamestross
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring)

~~~
Nicksil
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring)

------
fouc
We also need a Hippocratic Oath for CEOs and investors and shareholders. We
need a Hippocratic Oath for Corporations, for they have personhoods too!

------
mensetmanusman
It doesn’t work for doctors in the U.S. (see opioid epidemic, pharmaceutical
company deals, etc.), why would it work for Software Engineers?

~~~
guessbest
“All the nations of the world may sign up for the kinds of principles and
rules we've described now, but will everybody follow them? Will everybody even
sign them? Well, we don't yet know. But if you get these kinds of laws or
principles adopted, it makes it easier to galvanize everyone to stand up and
defend them. It makes it easier to hold the violators accountable.”

It sounds more like a mandatory code of conduct for all software projects.

------
juanbyrge
We need to go far beyond that -- we need an actual profession. It always
strikes me as odd that someone can go through a 4 week bootcamp and call
themselves a software engineer. Robert Martin has been advocating this for
point for years --
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17vTLSkXTOo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17vTLSkXTOo)

~~~
logicchains
>It always strikes me as odd that someone can go through a 4 week bootcamp and
call themselves a software engineer

Why? If four weeks is enough for somebody to learn enough that they can build
Joe the Plumber a slightly nicer-looking website that he's happy with, what's
wrong with that? A lot of excellent software engineers have zero days of
formal software education. Even Donald Knuth doesn't have a software
engineering degree; he has physics and maths degrees. Should Donald Knuth be
forbidden from developing software because he doesn't have a piece of paper
saying "software engineering degree"?

------
throwawaysea
No thanks. Apart from creating unnecessary barriers to entry, such an oath
would immediately be politicized and used to stifle certain views, speech, and
work. More broadly, I also think licensing in general can be counter
productive, constraining supply and imposing bureaucratic certifications where
none are needed.

How about we start with something we need more immediately - updated antitrust
laws that are enforced against giant companies like Microsoft? Brad Smith is
talking big about requiring an oath for engineers but neglects his own role.
Before he was President, he was General Counsel for MS. He is still today the
chief legal officer and chief compliance officer alongside his president title
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Smith_(American_lawyer)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Smith_\(American_lawyer\))).
Let see him and Microsoft come clean on antitrust, privacy, theft of others’
innovation (like Slack) while holding a giant patent war chest, etc.

------
brobdingnagians
I suppose the NSA will just disappear overnight, that and the military
industrial complex /s.

People very much disagree on what is ethical, and the people who know they are
being unethical rarely let simple oaths stop them. Am oath like this simply
becomes a nuisance to the ethical free thinkers, while becoming one more
useless social more for the people who don't care about ethics.

------
hosh
I think I prefer the three permaculture ethical principles. They are much more
condensed, more broadly applicable to any technology at any tech level, and
much more holistic. These are:

1\. Care of Earth

2\. Care of People

3\. Fair Share

They can be applied to technology as part of the whole ecology, not just
human-centric. It puts life and death in the proper context of the whole,
rather than the way modernity had twisted it up.

~~~
qayxc
Caring about ecology is very much human-centric.

Neither the planet nor its biological inhabitants "care" about anything. They
just are (as in they exist).

The main driver for protecting the ecosystem is the fact that we - as a
species - can't survive (for long) without it.

Granted, there are some who strongly believe that becoming a race of cave
dwelling mole people or inhabitants of glorified snow globes in an
inhospitable barren wasteland is a desirable prospect somehow. But overall
humans prefer blue skies, green meadows, birdsong, trees, and diverse natural
landscapes.

~~~
hosh
Care about the ecology is not just about the environment as if it were
something separate, or abstracted. There is a very practical, pragmatic reason
not to sh$t where you eat. At least, not without composting with charcoal, or
using one of those ecovats to clean it first, before feeding it back to the
garden.

As far as whether the planet or biology “care”, we will have to disagree and
leave it at that. While I think the word “care” is overloaded with a number of
meanings, many are human-centric, I do have beliefs that there is a planetary
and plant intelligence. I don’t think the Universe is as uncaring as you
think, though there are many, many unpleasant things.

------
alexbanks
Replace Software Engineers with "Anyone involved in the creation of software",
and then it goes from a "Definitely not" to a "Eh, maybe."

Until the people pointing the software engineering departments are held
accountable for their immoral behavior and goals, I don't think the engineers
beneath them can really be assessed fairly.

------
z_
There is one.

[https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics](https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics)

~~~
dragonwriter
That's an ACM Code of Ethics. Software Engineers aren't required to be in the
ACM, so it's not, in any meaningful sense, a general code of ethics for
software engineers.

------
sudhirj
The Hippocratic oath isn't very effective — it did not prevent the development
of bioweapons, drugs to carry out death sentences, or human destruction during
WW2. If doctors can have their oath circumvented in a very tangible and
obvious way, why do we think programmers working at a high level of
abstraction can't?

------
kabacha
The real answer is the same as it has always been: libre software.

Funny how same topic comes up every time some new issue pops up but we've had
the answer nailed in the 90s.

If you want software you can trust no amount of oaths, certificates and
overseer bodies will ever be enough. It's only possible to trust fully
transparent software.

~~~
qayxc
These are orthogonal topics, though.

This isn't about trust. Is using Libre Office Calc for operating a death camp
more ethical than using MS Excel?

Is the creation and use of an armed autonomous drone justifiable and ethical
as long as its firmware is open source?

Are misinformation bots and fake news generators OK, as long their source code
is freely available for use and further modification?

~~~
zajio1am
well, then using Hippocratic Oatch is not a right metaphor. Doctors are
supposed to take care of their patients and not judge their morals, even if
such patient is a death camp commander.

~~~
kabacha
Yup, if I'm a Libre office developer what am I suppose to do to prevent nazis
using my program? It's absurd to put this weight on a software developer.

------
austincheney
It’s unfortunate, perhaps to the point of irrelevance, that a need for ethics
was raised and then summarily limited to AI.

Software, all software, needs an ethical standard and it currently has nothing
remotely close in common practice. This will be a hard sell though, because
most developers have no idea what ethics are, why they would be needed, or how
they apply to practice. Frequently when the idea of ethics are raised the
response is hostility and often framed in terms that are purely imaginative.

When people in other industries ask me what’s required to be a software
developer I always tell them it’s just a matter of charming an interviewer.
There is no education requirement, no licensing/certification, no standard
skill definition, no internship or agency, and certainly no ethical standard.
It’s always amusing to watch their response.

~~~
baggy_trough
Certainly we can be very happy that it is so.

~~~
austincheney
When you don't have anything to compare it to I am sure its perfect and
faultless.

------
tester34
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring)

>The Iron Ring is a ring worn by many Canadian-trained engineers, as a symbol
and reminder of the obligations and ethics associated with their profession.
The ring is presented to engineering graduates in a private ceremony known as
the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer.[1][2] The concept of the ritual and
its Iron Rings originated from H. E. T. Haultain in 1922, with assistance from
Rudyard Kipling, who crafted the ritual at Haultain's request.[1][3]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer%27s_Ring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer%27s_Ring)

------
peter_retief
Wow coming from Microsoft that is a bit rich. I do understand the problem with
developers being a law unto themselves but that was largely caused by the
propriety mess caused by Microsoft and others. So now they want to fix what
they broke to their advantage. No thank you.

------
lootsauce
No, this is a meaningless sentiment. Floating a feel-good idea like this
accomplishes little in the face of how the world actually works. In the real
world the hippocratic oath does not prevent malpractice, over prescription of
opioids, or name your beef with the entire healthcare system let alone doctors
actions.

Engineers are hired to make weapons systems that kill civilians. Engineers
make software that enable ubiquitous surveillance by whomever wants to use it
for whatever purpose. No a Hippocratic oath will have a hard time influencing
individuals and their organizations that’s what laws and the enforcement
thereof are aimed at. I have little hope for oaths or laws however.

------
shmerl
Yeah, how about not abusing their market dominance with lock-in and anti-
competitive shenanigans? MS could benefit from sticking to proper business
practices first. Preaching ethics while the company engages in shady behavior
is hypocritical, not Hippocratic.

------
lenkite
Please have a hippocratic oath for management first.

------
hmmnotsureif
I think we need to go well beyond a Hippocratic oath.

Most Software Engineering Degrees require an ethics course. Yet - we still
have the issues we have today.

Asking for good intentions isn't going to change outcomes, because Software
Engineers already have good intentions. Nothing will change.

How about Software Engineering Licensure? You have been found to contribute
glaring security issues in widespread code? Lose your license and employment.
Use dark patterns to defraud people? Lose your license and employment. Leave
"debugging" endpoints open or collect unminimized telemetry? Lose your license
and employment.

This seems stronger, and much more likely that outcomes will change.

But good luck getting the industry to move.

~~~
jojobas
Ethics is not a hard science.

Also it's not that the underbelly asks would ask their hacker candidates for a
license, or that the military/cops would care about a licensing body.

------
sputr
Or we could just finally admit it: markets/buissness needs to be regulated.

And markets/businesses with a high risk of negative effects for society (and
software already belongs in this category) should be strickly and proactevly
regulated.

------
PedroBatista
That's rich coming from a lawyer who has been with Microsoft since the early
90's..

Maybe the oath is yet another hollow ritual and what Software Engineers need
is what everyone else needs, a sense of morals and a spine.

------
young_unixer
Looking at history, we rather need a hippocratic oath for Microsoft CEO's.

------
ch33zer
We don't need a Hippocratic oath for engineers, we need it for management. It
shouldn't be up to the individual engineer to guide the organization towards
better morals, it should be upper management.

------
jerkstate
Software engineers usually aren't in charge of the features they write. They
can refuse to do their job at their own peril. Maybe we need a hippocratic
oath for product managers or something.

------
mesozoic
More like an oath for company directors. No single engineer will make the
world destroying AI on their own it will be made by companies getting more and
more desperate for people to click their ads.

------
jacquesm
A better thing would be if CEOs would take that oath. Software engineers tend
to be told what to do, they are more like soldiers than like doctors.

What would be good if we took a leaf out of the book of the _real_ engineers
and started caring out what we put out there as though lives depend on it. But
that starts with getting rid of all of those disclaimers. No other industry
gets away with accepting such little liability as the software profession.

------
beaunative
Softwsre Engineers rarely get to make those decisions about privacy or AI
ethics. From the engineer standing point of view, there is of little
possibility of the engineer knowing exactly how his code will be used. There
should be an oath for people making this decision but not so much for people
doing this. The reason why doctors swears in is because they are to make those
calls that could easily decides a person's life or death

------
walrus01
What we need is more ethics courses and courses on historical business
frauds/schemes as a graduation prerequisite for getting an MBA. For the
persons leading the groups of software engineers.

I am honestly much more worried about terrible directives coming from c-suite
persons, that result in ethically questionable apps and software.

In addition to ethics training and commitments from the persons doing the
actual engineering work.

------
doubtfuluser
So he suggests something like the “Hambach Declaration on AI”? When it comes
to regulation we are fast in the EU ;)
[https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/institutional-
matters/decla...](https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/institutional-
matters/declaration-de-hambach-sur-la-cooperation-transfrontaliere-franco-
allemande)

------
luord
While I still keep in mind the words from Tron ("fight for the users") and
haven't yet accepted a job where people would likely be harmed by my code one
way or another (that I knew of), much of the blame still falls on management
as the top comment says.

Still, I'll always try to fight for the users in any code I write and,
specially, in any code I control.

------
marcus_holmes
The Hippocratic Oath works for doctors because they have power over what
happens to their patient(s). Administrators and managers run the facility, but
cannot tell Doctors what to do.

It would only work for software engineers if we moved to the same model:
Management run the facility but cannot tell software developers what to build.

I don't think that's a viable model for managing software development.

~~~
maps7
I think that could work but the people working there wouldn't solely be
software engineers (e.g. not just code monkeys). They would be a person using
software engineering to solve a problem.

------
watwut
What about Hippocratic Oath for Management and Leadership.

In all seriousness, ultimate decision making, hiring, firing, promoting,
rewarding, punishing and culture building are all on management and
leadership. Microsoft President happen to be on top of it. If they think
companies use engineers in an unethical way, what about building management
culture that ensures this wont happen.

------
darwingr
Ok sure, all for it but as a business executive, the president of Microsoft
can really stay the hell out of the process of coming up with that.

------
paulcole
Get into an industry, make a shitload of money, then add regulation and
qualifications to make it harder for the next generation.

A tale as old as time itself.

~~~
alacombe
That's the summary for the Boomer & X'ers.

------
threatripper
I say no. My boss says "well, then no more salary for you". I say yes. My boss
smiles. I feel dirty but my kids are not hungry.

~~~
watt
Think more like a member of guild.

In fact, I am starting to think certifications like PCI DSS are similar to
oath: "I will not leak customer data, I will not leak card information". If
the oath is broken, the PCI retaliation is swift: the whole company is totally
cut off from processing payments. The company compliance is ensured on threat
of bankruptcy.

So you push back: pushing this through means the company will fail PCI DSS
audit once that comes up, and then we're all out of jobs. No salary for
anyone. And the boss thinks again.

------
MrQuimico
This is stupid. It's like asking a blacksmith to not build a specific knife,
because it'll be used in a murder. You need to prosecute the murderer not the
people building the knife.

Software, as an object, is harmless. It can be used for good or evil, just
like anything else. So if anybody needs an oath is the people using the
software, not the people building it.

------
rektide
Quick retort, i'd roughly sketch out the problems with software as 10%
personal ethical issues & 90% as leadership/organizational/constraint/related.

Engineers want time & resources to do a good job, to make sure things are well
considered. It is capital that drives us to push for expediency & convenience.

------
smithza
Electrical Engineers, if they join the IEEE, are asked to uphold their code of
ethics:
[https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html](https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html)

Mechanical Engineers have a similar one (ASM).

This is not novel.

------
MH15
I'm not a fan of the article's opening comparison to military hierarchy as an
example of an organization that deploys weapons with ethics or discretion. As
we've seen in (at least) the US, the military industrial complex determines
when and where we fight, often at the expense of thousands of innocent lives.

------
lifeisstillgood
More usefully we need something like "engineers sign off". A railway engineer
is needed to sign (literally) a document saying that a new bridge or changed
line is safe and reliable - and if they don't there is no getting around it by
management etc.

This has lots of implications but the big one is really very few railway
deaths.

------
leafboi
Most evil is conducted with the conductor being fully aware that the action is
evil. An oath isn't going to stop someone who is aware they are violating
social norms in the first place.

A thief knows stealing is wrong. A murderer knows killing is wrong. You don't
stop thieves and murderers by making them swear hippocratic oaths.

------
zcw100
This has nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with hyping AI. “It’s
so good you need to listen to me. Not just on technical matters but on _moral_
matters. It’s too dangerous to give to just anyone but I can protect you from
it. I can harness it for good. If only you would do as I say and give me $1b”

------
wrnr
Why are people so obsessed with "don't be evil" if "be good" is a much more
effective commandment. This suit had to visit pope Francis to ask him how to
program a soulless machine, his time would have been better spend helping a
local charity or even better a struggling family member.

------
bjt2n3904
Absolutely not.

No.

No again.

A thousand times, no.

The reason that doctors take an oath is because their practice directly
affects people. A patient puts their leg, their heart, their eyes right into
the doctors hands. Any mistake, any "experiments"... this directly harms the
patient in an objective way.

A "do no harm" oath doesn't work with software. A software engineer writes a
piece of code. This can be used for good, or evil, but by whose standard? Once
the code is out there, the software developer cannot be held liable for its
abuse, except perhaps in the limited circumstance that the software was
designed FOR abuse. (ie: a zero day released without responsible disclosure).

I would never take an oath that I wouldn't release "harmful software". First,
because "harmful" today has become incredibly subjective. (Someone might say
I'm being harmful in writing this!) Second, because it's difficult to tell how
something will be used, and I don't have the time or energy to follow up with
everyone using it to make sure they're using it to my liking.

Last year, someone got a lot of attention for taking down their insignificant
NodeJS is_even implementation when they discovered that ICE was using it. Can
you imagine what would happen if Redis disappeared, because the authors
discovered it was being used by some disagreeable activists?

I'll tell you, very simply. People would continue to use it, having archived
the source. The activists, ICE, you, me, everyone. Any such oath is useless
posturing, and subject to the whims and pressures of what's in vogue today.
Gives the appearance of doing good, without having to do any good.

~~~
bantunes
There's checking people using your libs downstream (which, admittedly, is
quite hard to do) and there's not writing software for cruise missiles.

> This can be used for good, or evil, but by whose standard?

Your own. The oath is taken by humans, and humans differ in opinion - no one
can impose an absolute standard on you, and you follow your oath as you
understand it. There's no board to deprive you of your license in IT.

> Any such oath is useless posturing, and subject to the whims and pressures
> of what's in vogue today.

It's only as good as the will to uphold it. I think that's what's in short
supply among the stereotypical "bro" coders.

~~~
alacombe
> cruise missiles

Cruise missiles aren't necessarily evil, quite the opposite, they could be
guaranteeing Liberty.

------
throw7
"Software Engineers" are not the problem. They'll do what their told. That
Microsoft President should look higher up the food chain (stuff rots from the
head chief). Also the analogy to having a UCMJ-type legal system for "Software
Engineers" is just bonkers.

------
pjmlp
Those of us with professional Engineering titles already have to do a kind of
engineering oath anyway.

The problem is the lack of value of the word "engineering" in several
countries, where everyone fells like calling themselves engineer after a six
weeks bootcamp without suffering any issue with it.

~~~
alacombe
> The problem is the lack of value of the word "engineering" in several
> countries

Or the fact that "enginnering" has be co-opted and made de-facto illegal for
all but the small minority who agree to pay the local mafia^Wengineering
association. This is especially a problem in North America. In Europe, the
problem is different as you can only declare yourself an "engineer" if you've
been in the right university.

Anyway, I could be a P.Eng, but paying the yearly racket money... I'll pass.

------
coliveira
This is another example of the system trying to move to individual workers the
failures of the economic elite. It is not the software engineering profession
that is putting in risk the world, instead it is the unscrupulous drive for
more profits coming from investors and CEOs.

------
kazinator
What the Microsoft President said:

"We need a Hippocratic oath for software engineers"

What it would be useful for the Microsoft President to say:

"We need a Hippocratic oath for software engineers, marketing, sales,
accounting, customer support, management, senior executive staff, board of
directors, ..."

------
falcolas
Software Engineers: but your ethics aren’t my ethics, and/or ethics get in the
way of my paycheck.

------
minerjoe
We need a Hippocratic Oath for the medical profession. How many doctors
honestly "First do no harm"? Seriously, my father was killed by them and my
best friend was seriosly injured. If they would have never visited doctors
they would still be alive or still walking.

------
bastardoperator
As a Microsoft employee how could I take a Hippocratic oath and continue to
work or do for Microsoft? Is DOD and ICE not harming people? It's not the
engineers that need to take the oath, it's the greedy business folk that will
do anything for a dollar.

------
seattle_spring
I think a lot of folks on HN supporting this might be disappointed to find out
what it actually covers. While you may find it unethical to work for Palantir
or Facebook, or require JS to view a page, this particular law isn't going to
be on your side.

------
norswap
Tangential... but who exactly is Microsoft's president? I always thought that
"the president" of a company was the CEO (that's how it seems used in my
native French anyhow). What's the difference here?

------
commandlinefan
> In the top 10 Computer Science departments in the nation, there is only one
> that requires taking an ethics course to graduate

I'm not sure how well this meshes with the "you don't need a computer science
degree to be a programmer" trend.

------
booleandilemma
Yeah sure, except if I refuse to do something my boss will fire me and find
someone who will.

And hey, now that remote work is the new hotness, we’re more replaceable than
ever!

Before we can be expected to take an oath of any kind, software engineers need
to have agency.

------
anonunivgrad
How’s this for a start: the class of people who by their particular education
and talent control tech platforms shouldn’t get to determine what political,
scientific, and cultural content other people are allowed to consume.

------
millzlane
It won't work. There will always be an engineer willing to sell out humans for
money or knowledge. Money obviously being the root of all evil.

The surveillance apparatus wouldn't exist without these types of engineers.

------
tomcat27
It makes more sense to have this oath for all tech workers, not just software
engineers. Software Engineers may have less visibility on matters that
determine ethics.

Managers handle the context of application of a software.

------
notriskfree
Software Engineers: We need a Hippocratic Oath for Microsoft Presidents.

------
hybridwebtech
As a developer using Microsoft tools, I'll take the "Hippocratic oath for
software engineers" when Microsoft releases fully bug-free tools and operating
systems. Not until then.

------
adenner
The ACM does have their code of ethics for all members...
[https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics](https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics)

------
tus88
It used to be DON'T BE EVIL until Google turned to the dark side.

------
f223ff23f
I hope AI will make as much people jobless as possible. Especially lazy
Europeans who took too much money away from me via huge taxes. I hate all
Europeans very very much.

------
say_it_as_it_is
Let's assume that the president of Microsoft said this but it was taken out of
context. He of all people understands who decides what gets built and how it
is used.

------
valvar
We already have something better. It's called the AGPL 3.

------
yarrel
No. We need one for software company executives and investors.

A senior executive who wants to push this onto their employees can be safely
optimized out of the discussion.

------
cybert00th
I couldn't disagree more. On the contrary, there needs to be a Hippocratic
Oath for Management, Marketing and CEOs.

Anything else will just be buck passing!

------
9erdelta
I think more like software engineering needs to be more formalized like the
other mature engineering disciplines such as Civil Engineering.

------
yetihehe
"Do not create tools which can be used for evil" is rather hard to do.
Metasploit is rather useful but can be used for great evil.

------
spacemanmatt
That'd be great, then their employers could ride rough-shod over their oath
the same way hospitals and insurers do with doctors.

------
gavreh
[https://order-of-the-engineer.org/](https://order-of-the-engineer.org/)

------
FuckButtons
Why not some sort of professional standards body with examinations for
admittance like any other engineering discipline.

------
tonetheman
This will not work unless the CEOs of all of these companies take the same
oath too ... along with the shareholders.

------
waheoo
Do no harm, patents, copyright and proprietary software being considered
harmful.

I could get behind that, dont think you will though.

------
buisi
Some of these systems are so complicated it is hard for one person to reason
about every eventuality.

------
bsenftner
Stupid bullshit, we need a Hippocratic Oath for CEOs if ANY OF THIS COLOSSAL
MESS IS EXPECTED TO IMPROVE!

------
xozorion
I just wrote a keylogger in Python, and billion dollar companies shouldn’t be
touted as arbiters of morality

------
CyberRabbi
The minute we do that all software engineering will be shipped off to
countries that don’t require that.

------
wsc981
Could a software engineer writing guided missile targeting software be held
accountable to such an oath?

~~~
sebwi
The Hippocratic Oath is not for assigning blame or providing accountability
towards society's rules - at least not in the first place. It is a reminder of
basic ethical and professional standards and contributes to the common
understanding of a physician's role.

This may seem ridiculous considering the responsibilities of medical
professionals but it works as a baseline independent of the legal and moral
standards of the particular society they live in.

So to answer your question:

Yes, the software engineer could be held accountable - yet, that would
arguably be up to him- or herself in many cases [1]. There were physicians in
history who have done horrible things [2] and - if not by the legal system -
they were at least judged by their peers for their actions.

From my perspective, the most valuable aspect of having an oath (and that I
regard for professions in general) seems to be the opportunity it offers for
reflection, identity and future aspirations.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath#Violation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath#Violation)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele)

------
scoot_718
No, we need antitrust investigations

------
LoSboccacc
that's a lot of words to try and move accountability from the executive level
into the common soldiery.

the medical profession hierarchy is completely different to accommodate for
medics own agency.

responsibility without freedom (and without just compensation, dare I say) is
just bullshit.

------
reiichiroh
And yet they provide services to ICE

------
macinjosh
Not gonna do it. Not, gonna, do it.

------
batty_alex
I feel like a lot of people here are missing the point of professional
agreements or organizations like this: protecting the engineer from the
consequence of saying "no" to something unethical. Almost every software
engineer I talk to has a story about something they did early in their career
that was ethically dubious. Hell, I work at a fairly senior level in medical
software and I still feel like I'm taking risks by saying "no" to things that
are clearly sketchy.

Also, it makes sure we have a ethical framework to work with. Right now, it's
every engineer for themselves. You won't do something that sits in a legal
gray area? Companies will find someone hungry enough to do it. If we're all
staking our professional reputation on it, there will be fewer competent
takers.

Personally, I think it will also be a step towards better legitimizing the
profession and being more inclusive. Many folks have started equating Software
Engineer with hyper-rationalist orthodox libertarianism and... the stereotype
isn't far off from what's typically upvoted in these sorts of communities.

Anyway, them's my thoughts on this. I definitely support this sort of notion.

------
mlindner
Hippocratic Oath is the wrong thing. Software Engineers need to act like real
Engineers, namely certifications, accepted practices and penalization
(revocation of certifications) if accepted practices aren't followed. Software
Engineering needs live up to it's actual name and stop being just
"programmers".

~~~
kabacha
No please. Let's not take 1 step forward and 10 steps back. Software engineer
culture is already light-years ahead of pretty much every medium in every
regard ranging from inclusivity to simple fun factors.

Certifications is meaningless corporate propaganda and we should eliminate it
completely unless it's free and public.

~~~
mlindner
Disagree. Without standards we as a group hold ourselves there's no
improvement.

------
GiorgioG
How about we start with a Hippocratic oath for public company executive
management.

~~~
randomdata
"I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant: I
will respect the duty to increase shareholder profits by any means necessary."

------
siculars
Doesn't he mean for MBAs?

------
msh
I think a hippocratic oath for CXO's and other managers are more needed.

------
asimovfan
Isn't that what GPL is?

------
bigphishy
Please would someone remind me about how and why the Hippocratic oath began

------
Abishek_Muthian
When I was taking CS Engineering UG course(IN~2008), there was an elective
subject(have to be chosen by entire class) called 'Engineering Ethics'. It was
a preferred elective as there was no course work and I think there were no
tests as well.

I remember the professor starting the class as,

>"If a Structural/Civil Engineer builds a bridge and it goes down, he/she will
go to jail; lucky for you guys there are no ethics for computer science".

Last time when I said this, I was told _there 's no way a Structural/Civil
Engineer goes to jail if a bridge goes down_. May be its more common in India,
could be very well be the norm because every time a bridge goes down a related
Engineer gets arrested the very same day or soon under 'Causing death by
negligence'; perhaps a practice from colonial era still being practiced to
pacify public.

Read:

Another BMC engineer arrested in Mumbai bridge collapse(2019)[1]

Bhubaneswar flyover collapse: Engineer, director of construction firm
arrested(2017)[2]

4 Engineers Arrested In Kolkata Flyover Collapse Case(2016)[3]

IIT Roorkee: Two professors arrested in bridge collapse case(2015)[4]

SMC engineer held in bridge collapse case suspended(2014)[5]

Gammon, Hyundai officials arrested, probe ordered(2009)[6]

I'm sure you can pull up such cases going back at least 200 years.

[1][https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-
affairs/02041...](https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-
affairs/020419/another-bmc-engineer-arrested-in-mumbai-bridge-collapse.html)

[2][https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/bhubaneswar-
flyove...](https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/bhubaneswar-flyover-
collapse-engineer-director-of-construction-firm-arrested/story-
qZbWHlzGgoeCQ7xbw179yI.html)

[3][https://www.ndtv.com/kolkata-news/4-engineers-arrested-in-
ko...](https://www.ndtv.com/kolkata-news/4-engineers-arrested-in-kolkata-
flyover-collapse-case-1621175)

[4][https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/iit-roorkee-two-
profes...](https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/iit-roorkee-two-professors-
arrested-in-bridge-collapse-case-261726-2015-09-07)

[5][http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/38044181.cms](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/38044181.cms)

[6][https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/kota-bridge-
collapse-30-dead...](https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/kota-bridge-
collapse-30-dead-25-still-trapped-407537)

------
jansan
How about a Hippocratic Oath for the pharmaceutical industry first?

------
peteretep
Sounds like hiring competition with FB and Google is hotting up then

------
pyrale
Software engineers: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Tech C-Suits.

------
evolve2k
We Urgently Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Executives

------
reportgunner
When are we having a Hippocratic Oath for politicians ?

------
booleandilemma
This is like saying “we need a hippocratic oath for hands”.

------
evolve2k
We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Executives

------
Taylor_OD
Okay. How about one for politicians and CEO's?

------
m3kw9
For software engineering companies is more like it

------
pi-victor
the audacity of this pos. i'll take it, if we also have a Hippocratic oath for
greedy CEOs and board members.

------
lameiam
We Need a Hippocratic Oath for CEOs

------
nathias
doctors can agree on a minimal ethical standard, software engineers can't

------
papito
Oh yeah, WE are the problem.

------
nickthemagicman
Software engineers do what pays the bills.

The people in charge who run the business need a Hippocratic oath.

------
reagent_finder
Really, Brad? Software Engineers need a hippocratic oath?

This is the most hypocritical, low-minded dirty blow, pass-the-buck mentality
I have seen in a long time. That's even counting most of what Trump has said.
You should be ashamed of yourself, Brad.

How dare you make that remark when your WHOLE PLATFORM is built on shady
business practices and monopoly leveraging? How dare you try to shunt the
blame on software engineers when YOU YOURSELF profit from lack of ethics and
participate in systematic blacklisting of engineers? You earn seven figures a
year AT LEAST and are trying to blame people just doing their jobs, and
telling them they should look at the big picture and they should "have
principles" to basically refuse to work or quit? While at the same time
actively preventing these kinds of people from finding ethical work elsewhere?

Put your money where your mouth is or stop spewing Trumpian bullshit, Brad.
Anybody who buys this needs to have their head examined. With a cactus.

------
blablablerg
how about an oath for executives of big corporations?

------
anotherevan
“First do no spam.”

------
snomad
Do civil engineers, accountants, or lawyers take an oath?

------
jwalgenbach
Seriously? How about a Hippocratic Oath for CEOs and other corporate
executives? They exist in a world that encourages sociopathic behavior, and
they are coming down on engineers?

------
rvalue
No

------
MrZongle2
You first, management.

------
Hydraulix989
What about the C-suite?

------
techntoke
They should start by open sourcing the operating system.

------
garrison
Brad Smith in 2007: Linux violates 235 MS patents, and the FOSS community must
pay up.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070514143032/https://money.cnn...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070514143032/https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/28/100033867/)

Brad Smith in 2020: We Need a Hippocratic Oath for Software Engineers.

