
Ellen Ullman on the importance of making algorithms accessible to the public - fagnerbrack
https://slackhq.com/programmer-and-author-ellen-ullman-on-why-hackers-need-the-humanities-94f09d4584c7
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santaragolabs
Tangibly related due to it being Ellen Ullman.

Oh wow. So I read "The Bug" of hers just after it came out (14 years ago) and
it's such a poignant read about someone being slowly driven mad because he
can't find a very peculiar bug which unpredictably haunts the sales people
demo'ing their product. It's a great read and I highly recommend it to anyone
here. The technical accuracy is hilarious too but you don't need to be a
programmer whatsoever to understand the novel. I won't spoil the reveal of the
actual bug or the ending but it's very much worth it.

After reading it I loaned my hardcover copy out to a guy named Boris when I
told him how much I liked it. Boris; I don't know where you are and what
you're up to nowadays; but if you somehow end up reading this; I kinda want it
back. Ping me.

~~~
jacquesm
[http://blog.woodpie.com/the-man-who-shared-his-books-and-
mul...](http://blog.woodpie.com/the-man-who-shared-his-books-and-multiplied-
them/)

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afarrell
> The beauty of language is that we can be imprecise and still be understood.

And the terrifying thing about language is that we can still strive to be
precise and yet (perhaps even unknowingly) be wildly misunderstood...perhaps
malevolently. I've heard someone describe programming as telling a very
precise story to a very stupid human. However, I think it would be better to
describe a compiler as a more _humble_ listener. One who is willing to say
"I'm sorry, you just told me to multiply a string, and I think I'm
misunderstanding you." Thinking of compiler errors as an expression of
humility can explain the comfort one finds in a stronger type system.

It is the same comfort one finds by not speaking publicly on twitter but
speaking to a person who has the charity to say "huh? I think you just said
this thing that sounds wildly offensive, and I think I'm misunderstanding
you."

~~~
auggierose
I don't think ascribing humility to a piece of code makes any kind of sense.

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Upvoter33
I would love to see an article on this topic - this one is not it though. The
reason: we struggle at many major universities to determine this balance. On
the one hand, students need _a lot_ of CS in order to become mildly
proficient; there is just so much to learn. On the other, school is a last
chance to expose students to some of the big ideas of the world, the stuff (as
Keating says in Dead Poets) that makes life worth living. How can you do both
in 4 short years?

~~~
mcphage
> On the one hand, students need a lot of CS in order to become mildly
> proficient

Most of the CS students learn in school will be obsolete in a few years, and
they probably won’t be using it in their job anyway.

But the humanities they learn will be useful their whole lives.

~~~
jdietrich
If it becomes obsolete, then it isn't computer science.

~~~
KirinDave
We could argue quicksort could be rendered obsolete soon.

~~~
jdietrich
We still teach all sorts of slow and inefficient sorting algorithms, because
it helps to understand the core principles of sorting algorithms and
computational complexity. I don't think I've ever actually used a bubble sort
or a selection sort in anger, but the process of studying those algorithms
taught me to reason more generally about algorithms, which is really the
entire point. Computer science is a branch of mathematics; mathematics isn't
really about knowing things, but about knowing how to work things out.

I suspect we'll be teaching quicksort forever, because it's a really good
example of a divide and conquer algorithm.

~~~
KirinDave
I don't disagree! It has didactic value.

But that's not really the premise I was responding too. Plus, I obviously
enkoying being The Person In The Room talking about how the state of the art
in sort puts it at linear time and right up against the edge of the
information theoretical limits for bitwise comparisons.

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dijit
She strikes me as a person who has a lot of interesting things to say, I
haven't read her books so I thank the author for the exposure.

However, if I had one criticism it would be that the interview and resulting
article focus quite a bit on her being a victim of prejudice rather than
focusing on the great work she has done. But maybe that's me.

~~~
mcphage
I recently finished her “Close to the Machine”, and I loved it.

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YouAreGreat
Can someone point me to what the argument here is for why "hackers need the
humanities"? I can't seem to find it at the link.

~~~
nhebb
In the article, she never directly states that hackers need to study the
humanities. What she was basically saying - in the part about Vacca - is that
there needs to be human oversight to algorithms that affect public policies
(school districting, police paroles, ...). So the implication, in that
example, is that programmers should work with people in the social sciences to
deliver solutions that may not be algorithmically optimal, but better meet the
needs of the community.

~~~
torpcoms
> may not be algorithmically optimal, but better meet the needs of the
> community

Yeah, that sounds a bit like a blank check for someone to corrupt the
generated output under the guise of a nebulous "It's better for our community"
while scaremongering about the big bad algorithm.

~~~
nhebb
Corruption could happen in any case, but I still agree with having human
oversight [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong)

------
iainmerrick
This is a nice little interview, but the title is very misleading! The word
"humanities" only appears once outside the title and the answer doesn't really
address the title's claim.

I think it's an interesting topic, though. Do tech companies need more
humanities grads? I'm skeptical because plenty of other industries have caused
their own social problems, and the humanities haven't saved them. Look at
advertising, which was originally _built_ by artists rather than hackers.

It may well be true that big tech companies need to be more socially aware and
environmentally conscious, but that doesn't mean "the humanities" is
necessarily the answer.

~~~
matt4077
I don't believe she's necessarily calling for the hiring of humanities grads.

What would help, as a start, is an appreciation for the values (and value) of
the humanities.

On HN specifically, you frequently see something akin to Schadenfreude when
referring to students of the liberal arts serving fries to tech grads. That is
to some degree just factually wrong, considering many liberal arts undergrads
go on to rather lucrative careers in law, or powerful careers in politics.

But it is also short-sighted, because history has always been a two-step
process, with technology enabling us to do new things, and other disciplines
enabling us to use these capabilities for something resembling the "common
good".

I always like this thought experiment: Would you rather live in a world with
the middle age's social/political/law system and today's technology–or the
other way around?

This doesn't mean that social and political progress are the exclusive domain
of those who studied greek mythology. In fact, this article explicitly argues
that it shouldn't be: Hackers should engage with that community.

But what it does take is, sometimes, a bit of humility. Too often, I feel the
tech community is looking at technological solutions to social and political
problems. See cryptocurrencies, or the encryption debate as examples where you
can feel cynicism, bordering on disdain, for the political process.

The problem with that is, first, that it's wrong: a lot of power rests in
politics, and China is a living example that the internet community is
currently unable to win a direct confrontation with the power of the state. It
is also wrong in that it portraits all governments as equally bad, all laws as
subject to changed or broken when expedient, when clearly there are
differences in the rule of law between countries, and there are differences in
the willingness of politicians to act with integrity.

Secondly, using technology to create facts is somewhat undemocratic in itself.
The Federal Reserve may be committing all sorts of errors. But it is hard to
deny that derives legitimacy through a transparent, tested, process much more
democratic than bitcoin. It is also an illusion to suggest that bitcoin is
free of ideology, only because that ideology takes the form of an algorithm
decided in the past, ticking away with almost no method to influence it.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Too often, I feel the tech community is looking at technological solutions
> to social and political problems. See cryptocurrencies, or the encryption
> debate as examples where you can feel cynicism, bordering on disdain, for
> the political process.

You say that as though technology isn't _part of_ the political process.

If the last few years have taught us anything it's that the general population
is not a fan of the existing banking laws. But that hasn't resulted in reform
because the banks and law enforcement agencies have undue disproportionate
political power and prevent that reform.

Technologies that can disrupt the balance of power that keeps the broken
status quo aren't apolitical, but that doesn't make them _dirty_. They're a
tool that can be used for good or for ill. It's not as if the other side isn't
using their own tools. AES didn't exist in 1950 but neither did ISMI catchers,
room 641A, the Utah Data Center, always-on surveillance devices in everyone's
pocket, etc.

And resisting government overreach with maths is a whole lot cleaner than
doing it with bullets and IEDs, which are _also_ part of politics.

~~~
iainmerrick
I guess what I'm reacting to is not specifically this interview, but the
notion I've seen in a few places that "big tech companies need the
humanities". For example, John Naughton in the Guardian:
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/19/how-
te...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/19/how-tech-leaders-
delivered-us-into-evil-john-naughton)

Ullman's book probably doesn't oversimplify like that, but the title of the
article alludes to it.

What I would like to know is, what are some good examples of industries that
are doing the right thing, that could be used to guide the way forward for
tech companies?

I'm very skeptical that there are _any_ industries that have successfully
self-policed in this way. But there are many examples of industries that have
exploited shared resources and human weaknesses for a quick profit, and
inflicted lasting harm in the process: oil, tobacco, intensive farming,
fashion, cars, guns, advertising. (And just like social media, most of those
have their good points too!)

Tech and social media in particular is an outlier because it's so successful,
but even so it's not totally unique -- the economic and social media effect of
oil is massive too.

One possible positive example that occurs to me is nuclear weapons. They
_could_ have proliferated massively, but so far they haven't quite. Those
weapons are developed by states rather than corporations, though.

I really object to the stereotype of socially-awkward programmers being to
blame for everything, because we don't understand how real squishy humans
work. The problems we face are the same ones that have faced every highly
successful and transformative industry. They're at the root of business and
capitalism.

~~~
matt4077
This is a contentious opinion, but I believe journalism, at least in part, may
be a good example.

The publications generally regarded as the top, auch as The Economist, the New
York Times, and, until this year, The Wall Street Journal: they are not
catering to the lowest instincts. When they have made mistakes (somebody will
inevitably bring up Judith Miller), they have self-corrected, with new
policies, and by firing people.

I also wouldn’t consider the wish for „more humanities in tech“ as an attack
on you personally, or any single person. In fact, Google, Apple, and many
smaller companies have an excellent track record on many issues. Their
leadership actually has an appreciation for non-Technology issues far better
than most companies’. Yet the example of Apple engineers preparing to go to
jail to protect their customers stands out, because others (Yahoo, AT&T) so
eagerly cooperated to intrude on customers’ privacy.

~~~
iainmerrick
You're right, journalism is a good positive example.

I do worry, though, that it's being degraded by the widespread removal of the
firewall between the news side and the advertising side of the business.

------
internetman55
Everyone needs the humanities. You go to Princeton and you're gonna find Brian
Kernighan teaching computer science and digital humanities crossover class and
explaining tech basics to the 'educated laymen'. The people at the top of the
field know this; why haven't the rest of us figured this out yet?

