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Comment by haizhung | Hacker News Reader

Very well put. I am working on tooling that will likely increase developer productivity by a large factor; and will most likely be used to lay off more developers as their labor is no longer required.

I often ask myself whether that is ethical or not. But in the end, it’s not the tooling that’s unethical. Productivity increases are good for everyone, under normal circumstances.

It’s the fact that all the gains are being collected by the already uber-wealthy that’s wrong.

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> I often ask myself whether that is ethical or not. But in the end, it’s not the tooling that’s unethical. Productivity increases are good for everyone, under normal circumstances.

So if I'm reading your comment right, you think it would be ethical under normal circumstances, but also believe we don't live under those normal circumstances? In that case i think the answer you're looking for is: it is not ethical to develop these tools under the current circumstances.

Interesting take. Not that I disagree, but it’s interesting to see that on HN.

Wouldn’t that mean that it’s unethical to work on anything that improves productivity? AI, in particular?

As long as (almost) all the benefits/wealth generated by your work is captured by the 0.1%?

Because that’s the case right now.

The problem isn't the benefits per se, it's that the downsides are shouldered by everyone else while the benefits accrue to 0.1%. At which point it's just stealing from the commons.

If your tooling gains attention, will you take seed money from rich VCs?

When the product succeeds and you get offers to exit, would you sell to the uber-wealthy? They will exploit your user's data and collect the gains.

Those are the questions you should be honestly asking yourself when considering your own ethics. What's your price?

Im not owning the product. I’m getting a wage (and some stocks, so I guess I own .0000001% of it or so).

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