Ethical Questions in Software Engineering - Reversim 2019

Software is eating the world. We, developers and architects, are a major force influencing software, technology, and the world it creates. We don’t have the privilege of being unaware of our actions. If we really want to create a better world, we must understand the intersection of technology and humanity. We need to open our eyes to the link between ethics and software.
In this session we’ll look at some examples of ethical questions involving software and algorithms. We’ll discuss technology, sense of self, politics, truth, and try to understand what we can do about it.

Transcript

1. Ethical Questions
   In
   Software Engineering
   Rotem Hermon, SAP
   @margolis20
   

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4. Making the world a better
   place,
   since 450 BC
   

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5. “Software is eating the world”
   Marc Andreessen
   

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24. The basic problem is that web 2.0 tools are not
    supportive of democracy by design. They are tools
    designed to gather spy-agency-like data in a seductive
    way, first and foremost, but as a side effect they tend to
    provide software support for mob-like phenomena.
    Jaron Lanier
    Facebook has never been merely a social platform.
    Rather, it exploits our social interactions the way a
    Tupperware party does. Facebook does not exist to
    help us make friends, but to turn our network of
    connections, brand preferences, and activities over
    time — our “social graphs” — into a commodity for
    others to exploit.
    Douglas Rushkoff
    

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32. Thank you!
    Rotem Hermon
    Lead Architect,
    SAP Customer Data Cloud
    @margolis20
    

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