Ethical Dilemmas
25 Apr 2020
What is ethics in software engineering?
When someone hears the word “ethics”, the first thing that comes to mind is not software engineering ethics but instead it may be about philosophy or some philosopher such as Socrates. Even though software engineering ethics is not a hot topic, it is still very important in the engineering world. As written in the adapted version of An Introduction to Software Engineering Ethics by Shannon Vallor and Arvind Narayanan, they mention different scenarios where software engineers must take ethics seriously in their lives. One scenario and question written was,
“How many bridges are built today without the use of sophisticated computer programs to calculate expected load, geophysical strain, material strength, and design resilience? A failure of these critical software systems can result in death or grievous injury just as easily as a missing bolt or poorly designed gas tank.”
This article makes a point in how important ethics is in a software engineering career, even though many people do not think about it. For me, ethics means in the context of software engineering is to ensure we write code that is ethically professional and ethical in our personal lives. Ethics does not only involve making sure the building does not collapse or a nail is screwed in the right place but it is also protecting people’s integrity through programs written for multiple websites and companies.
Case Study of Ethics
There may be times where I run into an ethical dilemma where I write code that I do not think it ethically right such as Bill Sourour did in his article The code I’m still ashamed of which he goes into detail of code he was told to write for his company at the time. Sourour worked for an interactive marketing firm based in Toronto, Canada where he was a full-time coder. This particular firm was founded by a medical doctor which caused most of their clients to be large pharmaceutical companies. As a full-time coder, Sourour was to create websites that presented general information on the symptoms a certain drug would have and if the visitor proved they had a prescription then the site would provide them with specific information on the drug. There was a particular project Sourour worked on that still haunts him to this day.
The project Sourour worked on involved a drug that targeted women, specifically teenage girls. His job was to create a quiz that could recommend a certain drug based on the answers. The requirements Sourour received from the client for the quiz were to make all answers from the quiz point to their client’s drug and the quiz would only not recommend that specific drug when the visitor was allergic or already taking it. When Sourour first created the quiz, he did not think of it as wrong but instead as a job he had to do. After the site and quiz were created, a teenage girl took the specific drug that Sourour created the website for and she had killed herself. Sourour later resigned from his position and since that day he has incorporated ethics into every code he writes. Today, he is trying to inform other developers to look into ethics when writing code and is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery where he follows their Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.
Personal opinion on case study
After reading through Sourour’s experience, he should have considered ethics while in his full-time job or before in his early years as a coder. Ethics should be considered in any job whether it be in coding or construction because ethics plays a huge role in keeping the public safe from the product or from themselves, as in Sourour’s experience. If I was put into Sourour’s shoes, I might have brought up this ethical issue with the project manager before making the code public. When the project manager reviewed Sourour’s quiz, they should have seen a problem in how the quiz was rigged or as they put it “broken”. The project manager realized there was something wrong but did nothing about it which caused an innocent girl to kill herself due to the side effects of the drug. Ethics should be taken seriously and I am glad Sourour is taking it seriously today. Every workplace should be making all their workers follow a specific Code of Ethics because without a code of ethics horrible accidents, such as this one, could occur and I believe this particular drug is still hurting people today. By incorporating ethics all of this madness could have been stopped.