3. Challenging Authority

Professionalism and Codes of Ethics#

While there is no single, authoritative code of ethics for computing, there are some highly regarded and influential codes of ethics created by reputable organisations. They all at least contain some commitment to:

1. Acting in the public interest
2. Avoiding harm to other people
3. Maintaining honesty and integrity
4. Respecting the privacy of other people
5. Honouring the confidentiality of the employer
6. Acting to preserve or improve the reputation of the profession

Examples

The Holocaust

• They used punch card computers to document census data (Hollerith Machines)
• IBM performed the census focusing on Jews and Romani peoples.
• Watson, the leader of the German Hollerith Machine Corporation, was awarded the highest honour for a non-German: Merit Cross of the German Eagle with star
• Every concentration camp had an IBM machine to keep track of the prisoners
• IBM had a designated “Hollerith Department”

Volkswagen Emissions - 2015

They used ‘defeat devices’ that reduced the performance and emissions of the vehicles during emission tests to pass them.

• When driving on the road, the cars emitted up to 40 times the allowed NOx
• 11m cars worldwide fitted with the device
• Between 250,000 and 1m extra tonnes every year of NOx emitted each year, equal to NOx emissions from all UK power stations, vehicle, industry, and agriculture (Topham et al. 2015)
• According to VW, total cost of €31.3 billion
  The software engineers that wrote the code for this would have known what is was for.

Online Gambling

Software engineers make the addicting software…

Summary

• Engineers have to take responsibility for the things they create
• Engineers should not hide behind the excuse that machines are ethically neutral
• Engineers have to think about the purpose for which people use the things they create
• Engineers have a duty to challenge morally wrong behaviour by their company