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Andreessen's Corollary: Ethical Dilemmas in Software Engineering - Bryan Cantrill | Craft 2019

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  • Recommended by 4 people: 3 on Hacker News and 1 on Lobsters.
  • Presented by Bryan Cantrill
  • An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.

Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.

26K views7 years ago4 recommendations

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Bryan Cantrill explores the ethical dilemmas software engineers face as software increasingly impacts society, the law, and personal morals.

In 2011, Marc Andreessen famously predicted that software would eat the world. Eight years later, this prophesy is clearly coming to fruition -- and software's contact with our broader world is bringing with it novel ethical dilemmas for those who endeavor to build it. More than ever, we software engineers are likely to find ourselves in new frontiers with respect to society, the law or our own moral compass -- but often without any formal training or even acknowledgement with respect to the ethical dimensions of our work. In this talk, we will explore some of these new dilemmas, not to offer sanctimonious judgement but rather to try to equip ourselves to have the important new conversations demanded of our expanded role with respect to society. - Captured Live on Ustream at ustream.tv/channel/craftconf with the Ustream Mobile App

Why it's here

4 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as an insightful and highly engaging talk on the moral responsibilities and ethical challenges of software engineering.

calvinon Lobsters • Recommends

Andreessen's Corollary: Ethical Dilemmas in Software Engineering

bitofhopeon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Ask HN: Best Talks of 2019?”

This year's Cantrill talks include one on Ethical Dilemmas 0 and another on the "Moore's Law" paper 1. Highly recommend both. 0 link to this video 1 link

Bayarton Hacker News • Recommends

On “SEC charges Robinhood $65M for misleading customers about revenue sources”

Bryan Cantrill has a talk on YT on ethics in software 1. And as I remember it the take away is that the way we think about problems isn't very conducive to obeying the law, or being good to people in general. And I've got to say the amount of people I see thinking of regulations, social norms or morals as « cruft » is pretty alarming. 1 link to this video

earleybirdon Hacker News • Recommends

On “CCPA Scam – Human subject research study conducted by Princeton University”

Bryan Cantrill (DTrace etc) has a good talk on ethics in software engineering0. Skip to 12:29 where he recalls Facebook in 2011 experimenting with users news feeds. 0 link to this video

bcantrillon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Parler's home page is back online, but app still not in stores”

Yes, it was actually Gab -- and I talked about it in a talk on ethics on software engineering.1 As you indicate, that talk captures my feelings on the matter, so I'll let it speak for itself... 1 link to this video

bcantrillon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Signature Bank Closed by FDIC”

Yes, you have brought this up before.0 And as I have said before1 -- and will presumably say for the next 26 years as well -- I very much regret that quip. (The irony is that that was dredged up in part because people very strongly disagreed with my handling of the Noordhuis incident a decade ago.) But I will stand by my assertion that I have been outspoken about my disagreements with what I have found to be problematic in modern Silicon Valley, e.g. 234. 0 link 1 link 2 link 3 link to this video 4 link

Voultapheron Hacker News • Mentions

On “I am rich and have no idea what to do”

…evaluation it will not be that hard to score better than it does right now. But having silicon valley techbros apply their move fast and break stuff attitude to things that aren't tech startups has repeatedly resulted in awful results 1. So I must say reading this passage is quite revealing in ways I think the author did not intend it to be. 1 link to this video…

bcantrillon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Oracle justified its JavaScript trademark with Node.js–now it wants that ignored”

…ue to speak my truth about the moral decay in tech, and why we must hold ourselves to a higher standard.01234 And I obviously agree with your indignation that poor corporate behavior should not be the status quo! 0 Principles of Technology Leadership , link (2017) 1 Andreessen's Corollary: Ethical Dilemmas in Software Engineering , link to this video (2019) 2 (Anti-)application Video for YC120 , link (2019) 3 Coming Of Age , link (2022) 4 Intelligence is not Enough , link (2023)…

Voultapheron Hacker News • Mentions

On “Ex-Facebook director's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg”

It was also born by the guy - Zuck and arguably in a similar spirit - who initially created a hot or not webpage to rank female college classmates by "fuckability". No clue how any of this would come as a surprise if you know his history. Brian Cantrill talks about how social media was born crocked 1 while referring to the eerily similar friendster backstory. 1 link to this video