J. Nathan Matias 🦣

Ten years ago, in 2013, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility was dissolved after decades of important work because they couldn't find enough people to sustain it.

A sign of the times that we're now re-inventing institutions that computer science was unable/unwilling to sustain during one of its most lucrative periods.

https://www.publicsphereproject.org/content/cpsr-dissolution-and-gary-chapman-winner-cpsrs-norbert-wiener-award

CPSR Dissolution and Gary Chapman, Winner of CPSR's Norbert Wiener Award | Public Sphere Project — Liberating Voices Pattern Language

Jun 30, 2023 at 4:29amWeb
Show threadJ. Nathan Matias 🦣Jun 30, 2023
Many of today's proposals around tech ethics and accountability have already been developed, implemented, and then dropped by a previous generation of computer science. Sigh.
Show threadIrenes (many)Jun 30, 2023
@natematias yeah. we think about this sort of thing a lot. like - multigenerational projects are hard, in part because it's new people every year so the movement is always forgetting its history and has to learn things again. still it would be nice if things had gotten further last time around....
Show threadAphrodite ☑️ Jun 30, 2023

@irenes @natematias

doesn’t help that ethical behaviour is seen as an obstacle to profit instead as a buttress against liability by far too many.

Show threadIrenes (many)Jun 30, 2023

@Aphrodite @natematias very much agreed

honestly, you know that our Google role was a self-regulation thing, the industry trying to hold itself accountable to strengthen its case that it didn't need real regulation. we convinced ourselves very thoroughly, the hard way, that that will never work - that is, it will never represent society's interests properly, and society is a stakeholder.

Show threadIrenes (many)Jun 30, 2023
@Aphrodite @natematias the problem is that if the goal is avoiding liability, the incentive is to go only just far enough to deflect attention. companies whose goal is to avoid liability still break the law, knowingly, they just budget for it and prioritize the laws with the largest fines and stuff.
Show threadIrenes (many)Jun 30, 2023
@Aphrodite @natematias we conclude that, although as we always say true change does require people working for it both from the inside and from the outside, any long-term power structure which attempts to impose ethical behavior on industry must do it from the outside.
Show threadIrenes (many)Jun 30, 2023
@Aphrodite @natematias though of course real fixes also involve cultural change - teaching engineers to care about ethics
Show threadIrenes (many)Jun 30, 2023

@Aphrodite @natematias we could give a much longer explanation here, too, about how in our view ethics is a process. having well-defined rules can help but no system of rules will ever capture the organic whole of what's going on, so there need to be people thinking, always, about the gaps between these systems. not having a plan for that also means failure.

but that's a really long explanation that gets into cyberneticism and stuff, so we'll leave it for another day

Show threadferricoxideJun 30, 2023
@Aphrodite @irenes @natematias
When fines are a small percentage of profits if you even get caught, it kinda feels like "cost of doing business" (aka, "ethics schmethics").
Show threadGreg WilsonJun 30, 2023
@natematias I remember CPSR's heyday - looking back, I think the big mistake was not figuring out how to get ethical issues into the curriculum in a way that students would actually pay attention to.