Comment by delillos
7 hours ago
Why try to make things that are good? Why care about anything? Why not just turn our minds over to the machines, and let them rock us to sleep like babies?
7 hours ago
Why try to make things that are good? Why care about anything? Why not just turn our minds over to the machines, and let them rock us to sleep like babies?
Possibly because the goal is the end product that serves a purpose and has value, not the process. If you can make your product, make the customer happy, and make your money to enjoy your life and secure your families future… why care who or what or how (as long as it’s ethical obviously).
> Possibly because the goal is the end product that serves a purpose and has value, not the process.
This is not true for everybody or for every project. Sometimes it’s about the code and not about what it does. Sometimes it’s about learning. Sometimes it’s about the fun of creating. “Only the end product matters” is a narrow view of the world of software development.
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Every choice has a cost. The question comes as to when you pay it. Your idea of an end products behavior, and the end products behavior when it interacts with reality may differ significantly.
For example is unknowingly writing a security flaw ethical, when you could have used a set of processes to reduce them before release that would have make the entire thing take longer and cost more. Seems like programmers need a lot more ethics classes as ethics are part of any large scale process.
I agree with most of what you are saying, but I believe that this view on people's ethics is a little naive. Remember that we are talking about AI contexts here. Everything it infects has a questionale track record w.r.t. ethics on many levels.
Besides, ethics come from upbringing and social influences, not from attending a mandatory ethics class.