To Serve Man, with Software | Hacker News Reader

To Serve Man, with Software

blog.codinghorror.com

175 pointsingve59 comments

It's been my hope that the russia story and Google and Facebooks realization of the technology they've built has been used in ways they never intended, might stand as a sober reminder about the reality of evil in the world.

People recognize evil in, say, Isis, Nazis, or a school shooter, but usually accompanied with that recognition is a distancing from the act - a way of saying "I'm not like them".

And I'm not saying you are. But evil is insidious and pervasive. It affects everything we do. And that definitely includes software.

I worked for a company that had a help chat room, where users could ask a support person questions about the product. It was publicly accessible from a link on the website, basically a slack room. One day we notice two teenagers had hijacked the room in the middle of the night and were using it for an erotic conversation. That's fairly mundane, but what if they weren't teenagers? What if one of them was underage, and we had accidentally facilitated a child molester?

And this happens everywhere.

I heard about a kid who got cyberbullied with scratch (scratch.mit.edu) because it allows you to share content with other users? Do you think the makers of scratch ever imagined that they'd play a hand in some middle-schooler committing suicide? (fyi, they actually police this stuff)

I've built financial research sites, ad optimization software, phone calling apps, operational and monitoring tools. I think all that software has been mostly helpful for people, but I also recognize that it played a part in nefarious ends as well.

Everyone's hands are dirty.

I've been thinking about this lately, as my current software platform is sometimes used for purposes I really don't like. And I've been considering moving to work on some Etherium applications, since I strongly believe in a decentralized web. But the decentralized web will certainly enable unsavory characters to do evil things.

In the end, we build things for the purpose of serving others, but can't really beat ourselves up when those things are misused. If I was an automotive engineer, I wouldn't like the fact that creeps were using my cars to kidnap people or as getaway vehicles or the like, but it doesn't mean that I'm complicit in those things. I think software-- for the most part-- is a lot like that.

By the same token if you specialized in armored cars that could outrun police and were invisible to radar, you’d have no right to be shocked by who ends up using it. You’d protect diplomats and people in dangerous parts of the world... and cartel kingpins, dictators, etc.

I think this is a cop-out.

As a developer, your software makes it easier to do certain things and harder to do other things. Not all use cases are equally well supported.

Software is categorically different from something dumb like a hammer. Telling yourself you're just making hammers is a dodge to salve your conscience.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ― Edmund Burke

Not one word about automation?

We're frequently automating away jobs, in a way that makes capital more productive and shifts the balance of power from worker to capital.

It is unclear that the gains in productivity we might cause are good for those who are in the lowest hungs of the ladder.

This is what worries me.

In the end all the material progress our civilization has experienced since the Industrial Revolution has been due to increased productivity. Wages for workers can never go higher than worker productivity without the business employing them going out of business. Historically workers have received half of the returns to productive capital and that doesn't seem to be changing. However, recently the return to rents on land have gone up drastically and so capital's overall share of national income has gone up. But that's not a problem that can be solved by making workers less productive.

Wages for workers can increase faster than productivity if the business has a large fraction of fixed or non-labor costs.

Also, hasn't the productivity->wage ratio decreased in the past few decades? I've seen charts that seem to indicate that, but I suppose the timeframe could be cherry-picked or otherwise misleading.

e.g: http://www.epi.org/publication/understanding-the-historic-di...

> hasn't the productivity->wage ratio decreased in the past few decades?

We have been in a productivity crisis in the past few decades. AFAIK, nobody knows if it's because we are measuring everything wrong, because people are reluctant to adopt more productive habits, or because modern engineering completely failed on that front. But whatever is the cause, expect to see lots of noise and complex behavior on anything that touches productivity.

Jobs which machines can do instead of people are by definition jobs which are beneath people.

"Making capital more productive" is in your frame of reference neutral, not bad. And no, it doesn't "shift power from worker to capital" unless you actually think anybody wants the kind of job which is so tiresome it can be done with a machine instead. Don't confuse hard work for wages with job satisfaction -- you'd be doing one of those jobs yourself if you thought them as noble as this.

Conveniently ignoring the fact that many people who could do those jobs don't have many other options.

Yeah, and the point is to create other options. We like to grandstand about how infrastructure in the US is degrading but then scoff at the idea of liberating millions of people's time to actually work on it.

the problem isn't time atm though.

Yep, there are stuff that could (or sometimes even should) be done, there is available workforce, but nobody wants to pay the workers to do that stuff.

> unless you actually think anybody wants the kind of job which is so tiresome it can be done with a machine instead

If the alternative is destitution, lots of people want those jobs

Well duh, if the alternative is destitution I would be willing to do all kinds of degrading things.

Nobody wants those jobs, they're a means to an end. We are overflowing with useful work that needs to be done and can only be done by humans. There's really no reason to have professional ditch diggers and fillers.

There is, because the current system works in such a way that if a ditch digging machine does all that work automatically the result is not freedom from that burden for humans but that the ditch diggers starve to death.

Does it, though? I don't think all the sledgehammer swingers starved to death when the jackhammer was invented.

> if a ditch digging machine does all that work automatically the result is... that the ditch diggers starve to death

What evidence do you have to support such an implausible claim?

No, they just become unhappy retail workers, for example.

I'm sorry, this is nonsense. There have been lots of periods of industrialization and they didn't all result in mass starvation and penury. In fact, many of them _reduced_ poverty by freeing people to focus on new fields in which they had a better comparative advantage than they had at ditch-digging and partially reducing the economic incentive for enslaving others.

Do you think there is a ceiling after which machines would not replace human jobs? Which jobs? Is your job so secure from being automated?

If you can imagine your job being replaced then perhaps you would be able to sympathesize.

We're in a forum of programmers. Our entire industry is constantly automating itself out of work -- that's practically the entire point. And yet thus far we endure because there is still plenty of other work to do. It's not like this property is unique to tech.

> unless you actually think anybody wants the kind of job which is so tiresome it can be done with a machine instead.

Journalists are probably gonna be automated. Truck drivers as well.

I bet those two categories are not of people who consider their jobs meaningless.

Also, salesmen/saleswomen are being automated by websites. But their job is not beneath human dignity in any sense: it can be creative and highly social.

So this seems to be an over-generalization

This seems like mostly semantics. If a machine can literally do your job then the claim is that it becomes beneath humans to do it.

Your work will continue to have value so long as you can do it better and/or cheaper than a machine can. I don't think anyone denies that the process of making a hamburger can be automated, but this certainly doesn't put chefs out of business because they do it better.

This is, say, in contrast with say a conveyor belt. No human will ever be able to do better in the task of moving and sorting large amounts of simple items over short distances.

Its pretty clear we're on a technological trajectory where anything mass produced and mass consumed like automated burgers that beat a chef's skill is only a matter of when it gets rolled out. Human made versions of things are going to be entirely relegated to artisan efforts where the human-introduced flaws are the aspect people value over the objective merits.

There is a real difference between wanting variety and wanting flawed goods. Mass production is great for mass producing, but not so much for making unique items. We eat food prepared by a chef not because it is flawed compared to McDonald's, but because it's an experience that can't be mass produced.

I mostly eat food made by a chef so that I don't have to do the dishes afterwards.

You don't have to do the dishes after eating McDonald's either.

> Also, salesmen/saleswomen are being automated by websites. But their job is not beneath human dignity

That is disputable.

Human-mediated work often does more than just the job itself. The elevator operator isn't just pressing a button; she is also a greeter, perhaps a conversational partner, or a friend. In terms of "user experience" a human elevator operator is doing far more than just the mechanical act of operating the elevator, doing things that are (still) impossible for machines.

(Of course, there are trade-offs. A human worker is more expensive, more complicated, and can do things like have a bad day, or be a vector for disease. But still, I'm in favor of more "bullshit jobs" like elevator operator, in lieu of universal income.)

> But still, I'm in favor of more "bullshit jobs" like elevator operator, in lieu of universal income.

This is literally throwing away money and human effort. Our country could be so much better than it currently is if only we had the drive and man hours to do it. The very idea that "bullshit jobs" are even necessary ignores all the real problems that that the hypothetical person could be tackling.

>This is literally throwing away money and human effort

Yes, that is correct. This is essentially what Keynes, et al, suggested as reasonable stimulus during difficult times (although they used the example of digging a ditch and filling it in again, a job which has the benefit of getting people to exercise out of doors!)

>ignores all the real problems that that the hypothetical person could be tackling.

There are large classes of problems that cannot be touched by the population at large. War is literally the only human endeavor where more hands are almost always better (only almost because hands are attached to mouths which must be fed). I'd love it if millions of people worked at SpaceX, but what would they do? What could they do?

> unless you actually think anybody wants the kind of job which is so tiresome it can be done with a machine instead

This is an extremely entitled comment.

Most people do not have the choice to work on whatever they want. For most people, it is more like "do 'that kind of job' or be unemployed". If those were your options, you'd take the job of truckdriver or miner or real estate agent.

Do you really think all those peoples' livelihoods are beneath human?

Can’t speak for parent, but agree with some of what they said. And no, I don’t think those people’s livelihoods ought to be beneath human.

I assume that most people who have those kinds of jobs don’t want those jobs. Rather they need them given the way we’ve structured our society. Those without skills valued by the marked are essentially forced to exchange long hours of menial labor for their survival. Isn’t that more sad?

I think this is why so many folks on HN like the idea of the universal basic income.

> most people who have those kinds of jobs don’t want those jobs

Why do you assume that?

Agree with your sentiment.

Three cases:

1. I know a bus driver for the local school district that doesn't necessarily like his job, but he does it. He looks forward to retiring with a pension.

2. My father wasn't necessarily passionate about his drafting job, but still worked that job as a means to an end--support his family and pay for and enjoy his hobbies. He now enjoys his retirement and travels the world with his wife.

3. A brother-in-law works at his local hardware store. He doesn't specifically like it but it helps him buy his man-toys and care for his family and horses.

I really don't know what each of their dream job is, but it's obvious to me they have different goals than I.

Honestly it was a bit of a shock to me to realize that people work jobs that aren't what they're passionate about, and it doesn't bother them. It's a means to an end.

It made me realize that a lot of us (myself included--as a software type) are (too?) emotionally involved in our jobs. We've basically turned our hobby into our job; the means has become the end, really, to the point that we can't fathom someone working a job they aren't passionate about.

My opinion (and my experience with others) is that people want to work so they can sustain their desired lifestyle; it often doesn't matter the job they have so long as it helps them reach their goals. In fact I've known some folks who pursued software (degree-based or otherwise) simply to achieve their goals and support their (non-software or whatever) hobbies.

Then I saw the article discussed here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16036794 and it adds a very different perspective about which I really have nothing to add, unfortunately; I don't personally know anyone in this situation.

Jobs are automated because machines can perform them faster and cheaper, not necessarily better.

Regarding job satisfaction: Starvation is less satisfactory than a shitty job.

If we don't automate jobs away that can be automated, aren't we just engaging in a form of the broken-windows fallacy? I mean we could put people back in elevators to operate the buttons or do like Oregon and not allow drivers to pump their own gas, but should we?

That brought tears to my eyes. Ever since I can remember I've felt deep inside me that it is my duty to help others and do everything I can in me to make change in this world. That I must show others the same. Sometimes this can feel like more weight on my shoulders than I bargained for. Sometimes it helps rise me up and reminds me to always keep moving forward. I can't help to ask myself though, is this just something software developers have inside them? For myself I understood this pretty well, but I can't help to maybe think this isn't just software developers that have this everlasting feeling to serve man.

It's called faith. Faith that tomorrow will be a better day. Faith is hard work.

People aren't taught well what it is, how to produce it and how to hang on to it when it's most needed.

Doesn't matter which geography/culture/religion you are from, understanding how faith is generated in self and in others/what it takes to preserve it under stress is fundamental to doing the hard stuff.

> People aren't taught well what it is, how to produce it and how to hang on to it when it's most needed.

I don't know about you but I don't see many signs of unselfish faith anywhere these days, at all. I think where I get hung up on what exactly faith is, is somewhere around when someone says it's some "something" that can be summoned, and when I look it up on wikipedia it's something produced on demand by enlightened individuals who catch on at some point.

There's one problem that's been fairly rampant in America for over a century: no one is enlightened anymore, and no one can give any convincing reason that their vision of faith, or just simply what got them through the hard times, is useful to you. Is today's world anything like what the people who built it intended when they set out a few decades ago? Are their sources of faith still useful, and if they're not, well then who's selling the faith fodder these days?

i.e. if faith is what everyone needs, then you have to look first at why it's fallen out of favor to the point where it needs a sales pitch. Why people give a shit about more things than ever before, and why none of them involve the fundamental component to doing the hard stuff: a good reason why.

What is unselfish faith? Can you describe how do you perceive faith as a concept?

You have to see it in the fact that people try.

Jeff Atwood did not have to write this article. The guy has an establised rep. Is working on a well known project. He does not have to say anything. He knows as soon as he opens his mouth, about an issue which no one has a great solution for, he is opening himself up to unneeded attack. But he does it anyway. That's what I see. That people like him are around. And they will try.

That's what gives me faith.

Faith does not guarantee happy endings or heroes and that is why it is hard. So think about faith. Again and again. About how to produce and sustain it.

People underestimate the value of doing that and develop misguided notions about rituals/imagery/narratives that have evolved in all people to produce faith. To tackle the hard stuff.

I'm not sure it's important to debate whether software itself is _good_ or _bad_. It just is; a means to an end. We should of course debate whether the applications we build are good or bad. Many on this site consider Facebook to be bad (I don't really agree). On the other hand most people probably consider software which lands planes, drives cars, ensures accurate accounting, etc. to be good.

I used to think that tech was only "means to an end", and in general "ethics-less".

But then I read "Do Artifacts Have Politics?", and changed my mind. Everyone in tech should read this: https://www.cc.gatech.edu/~beki/cs4001/Winner.pdf

I love Jeff's way of thinking. I watched a YouTube video where he explains that he identifies a particular form of conversation - for stack overflow it is Q&A - and then hones in and builds a perfect environment where such conversation can take place.

Discourse is an awesome offering too,I hope that commercially it can lead a long life.

From the article:

> I'm ashamed of much that happened, and I think one of the first and most important steps we can take is to embrace explicit codes of conduct throughout our industry.

I think that there needs to be some sort of internationally recognised - and legally binding - code of conduct, something like a hippocratic oath for software developers.

I think the ACM Code Of Ethics is probably the closest, though not yet legally binding: https://www.acm.org/about-acm/acm-code-of-ethics-and-profess...

I feel that "Tron" has the most primordial and crucial advice for any developer: "Fight for the users".

We should always keep that in mind and as the top priority.

I hate the quote "Software is eating the world" because everyone keeps referring to it as though it's ingenious but in 2011 that fact was already pretty well established... It's like if someone said "the sky is blue" or "it is raining right now".

If anyone less powerful than Mark Andreessen had said it, nobody would reference this trivial phrase.

With this kind of attitude, I'm surprised that people are not quoting Mark Zuckerberg for saying “OK, I'm gonna take off the hoodie" because it carries about the same amount of information.

I think you're underestimating just how many people believe the opposite. I wouldn't be surprised if something along the lines of "you know, it's great we have tech for our toys and Facebooks, but what really matters is making real stuff" is a majority opinion.

I think you're saying something different re: values.

Parent's saying the trend has already been in place (and true) for significant time. According to a survey[0] from Pew Research,

  "Americans are roughly twice as likely to express worry (72%) than enthusiasm (33%) about
  a future in which robots and computers are capable of doing many jobs that are currently 
  done by humans."

[0] http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/10/04/automation-in-everyday...

Donald Trump is basically a comment section running for president

There is this really big world of people who don't think like you, know that history repeats itself, recognized before you were born that software can enslave, and that are aware that serving man would be something that would allow for his own autonomy.

Serving man with software would then be about creating the independence of man from you while still allowing you to be you.

This. You’re not serving man by discounting half the population. Period.

> The truth is that it's been hard to write because this has been a deeply troubling year in so many dimensions — for men, for tech, for American democracy.

American "democracy" isn't any more troubling in 2017 than 2016 or any other year before that, it's just that his party has effectively very little power. If he means Trump is still POTUS, then he's right. He's vehemently anti-Trump: https://blog.codinghorror.com/im-loyal-to-nothing-except-the...

As for men/tech, I'm not sure why it's a surprise to anyone that the type of (alpha?) male that winds up in a position of power (and/or money) would abuse and misuse it for sexual predatory behavior. This has gone on for most of human history.

A very small sample of randomly chosen examples from our recent past:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167013/Sexual-preda...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/sexual-violence-...

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/05/03/sexual-and-predator...

Learning that these types of things happen frequently != epidemic or that somehow 2017 was the year of the sexual predator.

What makes you say that he's discounting half the population?

You're cherrypicking. He describes that line as a joke from 2015 that he doesn't find funny anymore, and goes on to say he wants to make "software that helps people be the best version of themselves."

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