ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct

https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics

by pjmlp • 3 years ago

46 41 3 years ago

sgift5• 3 years ago

Imho, the most important part of the whole code is in the preamble:

The Code is not an algorithm for solving ethical problems; rather it serves as a basis for ethical decision-making. When thinking through a particular issue, a computing professional may find that multiple principles should be taken into account, and that different principles will have different relevance to the issue. Questions related to these kinds of issues can best be answered by thoughtful consideration of the fundamental ethical principles, understanding that the public good is the paramount consideration. The entire computing profession benefits when the ethical decision-making process is accountable to and transparent to all stakeholders. Open discussions about ethical issues promote this accountability and transparency.

There's no algorithm for ethics. People will have to weigh different aspects and make decisions. Others can and will disagree with the decisions that have been made. So, we need to think about our decisions and be prepared to defend them. The exercise alone will to make better decisions than just "going with the flow" or "yolo" or "I did what was asked of me", even if in the end we do decide to do what was asked of us.

dang• 3 years ago

Related. Others?

Software Engineering Code (of Ethics) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32783007 - Sept 2022 (52 comments)

Does ACM's code of ethics change ethical decision making in software dev? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30528782 - March 2022 (1 comment)

ACM, Ethics, and Corporate Behavior - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30464247 - Feb 2022 (33 comments)

ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24533181 - Sept 2020 (1 comment)

ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13176325 - Dec 2016 (2 comments)

Software Engineering Code of Ethics - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6827305 - Dec 2013 (35 comments)

ACM Code of Ethics - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1949326 - Nov 2010 (6 comments)

RecycledEle2• 3 years ago

I like the part about contributing to the public good.

There are 3 kinds of actions:

Good actions increase the public good. Helping a child is an example of this.

Neutral actions do not change the public good. Frivolously blowing money you earned is an example of this.

Negative actions decrease the public good. Enforcing artificial scarcity is an example of this.

whiddershins• 3 years ago

Artificial scarcity is the only thing that allowed recording musicians, and continues to allow fine artists, to have any career at all.

sgift5• 3 years ago

Musicians and artists in general had careers before artificial scarcity (read: Copyright/IP) existed, so that's false (the usual path was via a patron of arts). Now, we can discuss whether artificial scarcity allowed them to have better careers. Or careers which could be planned better than before. And whether that upside weighs higher than the downsides of copyright.

RecycledEle2• 3 years ago

Artificial scarcity is the only that that allowed a few rich manipulators to control all music, movies, TV, books, magazines, and culture in the USA.

The history of the USA would be very, very different without a few rich manipulators controlling our culture.

Analemma_• 3 years ago

I like the concept in theory, but I don't think's workable in the real world, because for the tricky edge cases (which are exactly why you'd want a code of ethics to begin with), nobody agrees on what is and is not ethical.

Is working for a defense contractor to build smart bombs and killer drones unethical? A bunch of people think so, but there are also a bunch of people who think we need these things to defend ourselves and come to the aid of e.g. Ukraine. The same goes for facial recognition (does it destroy privacy or help catch criminals and bring them to justice?), cryptocurrency (does it enable crime and uselessly waste heaps of power or help people subvert government tyranny?), high-frequency trading (does it enrich Wall Street by picking the pockets of individual traders or provide liquidity to the market?), ad tracking (is it an invasion of privacy or is it enabling people to get useful services for free?), and so on for almost any application you can name which might theoretically be prevented by a code of ethics.

Ethics are way too individual for this approach to be at all useful. A professional code of ethics either has to be so vague that anyone can interpret it however they want, or so specific that half the people who would be covered will disagree and ignore it.

jrumbut• 3 years ago

I completely disagree.

A lot of people out there are doing things that they know are wrong but think that because they have a boss they no longer own the responsibility of behaving ethically. Check out all the testimony in the FTX trial for examples of this.

sgift5• 3 years ago

Since you've brought up drones and smart bombs: What constitutes a war crime is a highly ethical and contentious issue with many people disagreeing on the exact scope. Yet, we've managed to write laws about it and get court decisions. Even if we want to, some things in life cannot be neatly packed into correct/incorrect categories. And the process alone of discussing whether smart bombs and killer drones should be build is helpful in shaping decisions on how exactly they will be build or not.

jltsiren• 3 years ago

A code of ethics is just a starting point for asking the right questions. It's not supposed to provide answers.

You mentioned some controversial technologies that have potential both for good and for ill. When you work on technologies like that, there is always a risk that your contribution to the society will be net negative. That the world would have been a better place without you. Is that a legacy you want?

Some of those technologies are a necessary evil. There will always be weapons of war, and there will always be people developing them. If you choose to make a career in such technologies, you should keep asking yourself the right questions. What are the specific choices your company is making, and are they making the technology better or worse for the society? Which choices are you personally advocating for? What is the actual impact of the technology you are developing in the field? Do you have faith in the leadership of the company and in the choices they are making? Should you continue at your job or quit?

You have some rights as a citizen of a free country. Those rights are balanced by responsibilities, because the government ultimately receives its powers from citizens like you. As a professional, your choices likely have more impact on the society than the average citizen. You should therefore take your responsibilities more seriously as well.

torstenvl5• 3 years ago

This appears to be deeply misguided. There is no possibility that this was written by someone who has any experience in professional ethics issues.

In many cases, this code of ethics is unethical, such as elevating "public good" as the "primary" concern.

infamouscow3• 3 years ago

This is the rhetoric of low quality people making excuses for their cowardice.

torstenvl5• 3 years ago

It isn't rhetoric, and I frankly don't care what some troll on the Internet thinks of my "quality." Professional ethics is something I deal with all the time. This ain't it.

refulgentis2• 3 years ago

Your point is 100% correct: I think immediately of how effective altruism turned into a contest of how many billions of lives you could save a century from now.

I can't go as far as saying "public good as the primary concern is unethical", because there's so many ways to twist abstract words.

I think immediately of someone saying the same thing about the Hippocratic Oath, or the Order of The Engineer, and they'd be just as correct. But the correctness is surface level: it is _rational_, but it is not practical.

torstenvl5• 3 years ago

You bring up the Hippocratic Oath, so let's use doctors as an example. If the "public good" takes precedence over the individual patient, then any patient with a communicable disease with a fatality rate should be euthanized. Do you think that's ethical?

Elevating public good as the primary concern necessarily means pure utilitarianism. There isn't a society on earth today that accepts pure utilitarianism as a valid ethical system.

And in countries that trend closer to pure utilitarianism, public policy is repugnant: https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-venezuela...

jacquesm• 3 years ago

I think you should expand on this or it will leave a 'middlebrow dismissal' vibe.

torstenvl5• 3 years ago

I think there are sufficient examples below, but just to be perfectly clear: the "public good" is a nebulous concept, which can either mean objectively assessed public good (utilitarianism) or subjectively assessed public good (personal policy preferences). The latter is particularly likely in light of the "ethics aren't algorithmic" cop-out.

Neither utilitarianism nor your own personal policy preferences should ever take precedence over your actual ethical obligations to your employers, your clients, and your users.

If at any point they do, then you have breached an ethical duty and possibly committed fraud.

mac-chaffee• 3 years ago

I wrote about this here: https://www.macchaffee.com/blog/2023/ethics-self-attestation...

Too many jaded technologists throw their hands up and just ignore ethics. At least ACM are _doing something_ about it.

Turing_Machine3• 3 years ago

"Doing something" isn't automatically good.

Sometimes leaving things the hell alone is the best policy.

RcouF1uZ4gsC• 3 years ago

Code of Ethics are useless and toothless without a licensing agency that gatekeeps who a company is allowed to hire.

That is why it can make sense for medicine and law but makes absolutely no sense for programmers since there is basically no barrier to entry.

epgui• 3 years ago

This represents a big misunderstanding of the nature of ethics, as opposed to deontology or law.

That being said, I also wish society was better at punishing ethical lapses.

stareatgoats3• 3 years ago

This is all very commendable, skimming through it I couldn't find one point with which to disagree. But ... where do I get this sense of naïveté?

I tried to work that out but it became too complex, and overshadowed the positivenes of bringing ethics to the forefront, where it seldom is.

Suffice to say that ethical principles in the chaos of reality where wolf eats wolf are extremely difficult to uphold. Sometimes they even become a veil over an ugly underbelly. Not always, but it happens sufficiently often for warning bells to go off when someone cites their lofty ethics.

daymanstep2• 3 years ago

So a person with a strong sense of ethics should never talk about their moral code because others see it as a red flag?

stareatgoats3• 3 years ago

should never talk

I wasn't prescribing anything, I was just trying to chart what feelings a code of conduct like this evokes in me, and I may be more sensitive to hypocrisy than average.

But I see no harm for people with a strong sense of ethics to expect some scrutiny of where they reside if they feel compelled to preach their moral code. That doesn't mean they shouldn't do it. But if, for example, they live in a glass house then it's only in their own interest that they hold off on throwing any stones until they have moved to another, less fragile place.

smlavine• 3 years ago

At my university (RIT) they made us all read this and do a report on its importance in the seminar class before we can go on internships. It's all well and good but I don't think it has any teeth without a culture to support its enforcement or a licensure process to require it.

alfl• 3 years ago

If insurance companies add ethics clauses to contracts that refer to this, suddenly it’s very enforceable.

“If we build that we’ll need an insurance waiver.”

“We won’t be able to get cyber insurance if we do that.”

Etc.

shusaku• 3 years ago

In the subject of ethics, it driving me nuts that the ACM has a cookie banner including (opt-in) check marks for marketing and statistics. The should read their own ethics statement about user privacy.

ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct

Related Stories