If only software engineers were liable like real engineers are
Even when you cannot get highly employable US engineers to agree to do unethical work, you can always import some indentured servants who are too vulnerable to feel like they can say no.
I know someone that took a job at meta short term to get cash for a family member with cancer.
Go after the people giving the orders, not the workers trying to survive a deeply fucked up system.
That said, expecting individual engineers to understand the greater context of building an online addiction machine is probably too much. The product managers and data scientists surface concerns and executives decide. And executives should be held criminally responsible in the event of gross negligence.
1. Few workers report a 996 work schedule at Meta or other Mag7 companies. This work schedule is reported by smaller AI startups and Chinese and Indian tech firms.
2. H1B and many other sponsored visas are transferrable. I have had several colleagues get laid off or interview for other jobs and get hired elsewhere. The L visa is non-transferable, though it represents a minority of visa sponsorships in the US.
3. You directly ignored my data about workers at Meta out-earning other workers in the Bay Area. My foreign colleagues earned the same as I did at virtually every stage of my career.
In general macroeconomics, yes, the introduction of foreign workers results in wages getting pulled down. This "lump of labor" only has temporary impacts. The overall outcome is an increase in the market for engineers, as immigrants go on to found companies. NVIDIA, the world's most valuable company, is one of these.
Expect the GOP to move in this direction as the democratic party starts going after big tech as well.
An engineer is liable but so is the firm. A doctor is liable but so is the hospital. I’m going after both.
How would making imported workers liable do anything but disincentivize them from committing these crimes?
Obviously we should hold leadership liable and responsible for harms of their choices and make this stuff illegal. Once illegal, then everyone is held to that standard of course.
Don’t assume I’m lacking empathy. The goal of holding engineers liable is to protect the public against malicious software. Protecting the engineers is unrelated to my comment. You can have both. In fact, real engineers are mandatory whistleblowers, and protected.
If the wires are hanging out of the wall and someone asks me to switch the power on it reminds me how my old boss almost died then chased the guy with a hammer but collapsed from his injuries before he could kill him. So i disassemble the switchboard. If there is someone like that walking around I don't care how long it takes. Sometimes they get angry I just ignore it. They may also report it to my boss.
RL is different like that but also quite similar.
This is sophistry that was used to condemn Nazis but has never applied to any context outside of the Nuremberg trials. Fail to follow orders and you're shot as a traitor. Follow them and you're hanged as a war criminal. "Just follow orders" is the basis of paid employment itself.
It is assumed that those giving bad orders will be held responsible for doing so, but this rarely proves to be the case. See the eBay harassment of the Steiners. Everybody involved that followed orders was punished except the executive that signed off on and provided support for the operation.
But in the Equifax breach, two executives were fired following criminal intrusion by Chinese hackers they had no involvement with. Everyone that neglected to follow orders to patch Struts probably still works there.
The rules are arbitrary.
This doesn’t need an analogy.
Why not just look up examples of engineers disclosing breaches of code/contract? Every state has lists of complaints brought to their engineering board with results and disciplinary actions.
But a part of that process means introducing licensing to the field of software. Yet another hoop that this field has traditionally rejected. I don't think all SWE's "need" a license. But I do think that maybe it's long overdue to finally distinguish between a "programmer" and an "engineer" more formally.
Anyone can create a startup or call themselves software engineers and release insecure, privacy-violating products with no repercussions.
I worry about that because at some point, legislation will catch up, and without subject matter experts any implementation will likely be flawed at first.
There’s absolutely no reason why professionals at this pay grade and handling this much risk can’t be following this level of rigor.
1. That professional engineers being liable somehow makes the firm they work for not liable. Both are liable.
2. The professional engineer isn’t responsible for breaches of code/contract their colleagues are committing. They are. In most jurisdictions a PE must disclose in writing and are liable for violations they witness.
It’s surprising how uninformed folks are about how rigorous engineering in the real world is.
If you think this is overkill or unrealistic you’re jaded. The privacy and security of the general public is on the line. If engineers and firms were liable for every data breach they’d cease to happen.