Studying Ethics in the context of Computer Science and Engineering is important because of the growing significance people in those roles have. More and more, programmers have the power to greatly influence people’s lives. People spend multiple hours a day browsing in social media apps. This is where people get their news, love, and social connections. As Marc Andreessen puts it in his blog post: “In short, software is eating the world.”
Behind the power of software are the programmers who write it. It is, thus, in our hands to decide what and what not to program. In that respect it is easy for a programmers to wash their hands and say they were just doing what they were asked to. However, programmers should realize that they have a choice. By having a body of moral engineers and programmers, we can prevent corporations from using this power to harm people.
In modern medicine, Jonathan Harris describes how there’s two types of software companies: the dealers and the healers. The healers are those that satisfy an urge, but don’t lead to addiction. They usually provide a service for which there is a need. Take Uber for example. People have a need to get to places at an affordable price. Then there’s the dealers. The dealers are software companies that have taken people as assets. They offer people a free product, make them addicted to it, and then bombard them with advertisement to earn money from them. This is no different from a drug dealer.
Besides this, there are also companies that purposely damage people for money. In The code I’m still ashamed of, Bill Sourour describes how the pharmaceutical company he worked for performed underhanded business to get around regulations that prevented advertising drugs. To do this, they ordered Sourour to create an online quiz targeted at younger girls that suggested them to take their drug for virtually every case. Later Sourour found out that the drug was known to cause depression and that it led to the death of a teenage girl.
Besides the morality behind it, it is important to also be aware of that there are laws that have been laid down for years. Just like how industrial laws were laid down over the years after the industrial revolution, the software revolution led to new changes in legislation. Morality on software used to depend completely on the commitment of engineers to it. This has changed now, and programmers are liable by the law over any software they write. These laws range from respecting copyrights and patents to laws about privacy. Overall, they involve you being ethical and not performing underhanded business. Being ethical will protect you from being in trouble with the law and help you have a successful career.
Like Uncle Ben told Peter Parker “with great power comes great responsibility”. There may be lives at the tip of your hands. Be ethical programmers capable of tackling this world full of corporate giants who take advantage of people. Together we can make a difference.