

Ask HN: Should there be a Hippocratic oath for Programmers? - martingoodson

In the light of Prism, would it be useful for programmers to be able to publically swear an ethical oath? For instance, that they would blow the whistle on, or refuse to create, anything that they have reason to think will be used for a massive infringement on individual liberty.
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brudgers
So logically we have a function:

    
    
      f(oath)-->Binding
    

Such that

    
    
      f(privacyOath)-->privacyOathBinding
    

And

    
    
      f(loyaltyOath)-->loyaltyOathBinding
    

Maybe I am just not sold on the whole oath thing. Doctors are regulated not by
oaths but through licensure. Licensing of computer programmers is a possible
future state of affairs with more likelihood than might currently be obvious
without looking at historical precedent - e.g. local governments often license
all businesses, other professions become licensed as they mature, and as PRISM
shows, governments have an interest in the products of programming. The future
may inherit more from North Korea than we wish to consider.

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drobilla
Engineers generally already have such things.

I don't think "programmer" is a well-defined enough concept to be associated
with an oath. You can't go around calling yourself a Medical Doctor or an
Engineer if you aren't, but pretty much anybody who codes at all can
reasonably call themselves a programmer.

Even with all that aside, such oaths only really work for things like causing
blatant harm. Unqualified "freedom" and "liberty" (especially in the USA) are
so nebulous they mean almost nothing at all. The overwhelming majority of
programmers work for organisations whose goals (e.g. profit, power) are not -
and are often directly opposed to - "freedom" by any reasonable definition.

In short, I don't think the answer to your question is "no, there shouldn't"
so much as "no, there couldn't".

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dragonwriter
Professional organizations and codes of professional standards (including
ethical standards, standards for continuing education, etc.) may be valuable.

An analog to the Hippocratic oath (an oath which is not taken generally in any
consistent form [1], which has no binding force, and the form of which that is
administered is generally maintained and decided on by individual _educational
institutions_ rather than the practicing community), probably not useful.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath#Modern_use_and...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath#Modern_use_and_relevance)

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terrykohla
"an ethical oath"??? I don't think there is such a thing. What may appear
unethical to you may seem ethical to another.

Everybody will find justification for their actions as unethical as they may
seem to you.

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olso4052
Well, true, but many other professions have an oath of their own. Often times
the language covered in that oath is supervised by a committee.

Obviously, there are problems with this. But the point that Martin makes is a
really good one. Technology is going to dictate a vast majority of our lives
going forward, and programmers are the ones that literally make that
technology. A lot like a surgeon operating on a person, a programmer can be
neglectful or overly intrusive.

I think an oath is a great idea, actually.

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w_t_payne
Given the evident political power granted by technology, I can see (a somewhat
sinister) argument for restricting access to technical knowledge and
capabilities. Perhaps a government license required to use a compiler or
interpreter? A professional body to restrict access to the profession and bump
up salaries for programmers? (And also control them at the same time).
Programmers would become a lot like lawyers - privileged, but essentially
trapped and under the control of the state (similar personality types & skill-
sets required anyway).

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kevinchau
With how connected we are and how empowered developers and programmers are
today. I see many reasons that point to yes.

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HeyLaughingBoy
ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) has had a Code of Ethics for a long
time.
[http://www.computer.org/portal/web/certification/resources/c...](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/certification/resources/code_of_ethics)

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marquis
Doctors take the oath generally upon graduation from medical school. There
isn't any regulatory body - unless you make it mandatory to pay EFF dues there
is no body to regulate the oath-taking.

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Ziomislaw
you don't need an oath for that, being a decent human being already covers it.

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lifeisstillgood
There's one on GitHub - google Turing oath for programmers

