Would you work on an atomic bomb? How about a new type of gun barrel? Math equation that ends up making hitting targets easier? Where do you draw the line if any?
Are you a statist who thinks he doesn't have to make this decision because it's higher ups job to decide whether to use force or not?
Yup, yup, yup. If we can increase weapon lethality, then infantry become less effective while bots become more effective. Thus less infantry will be put into combat.
>>51514433
Lol yeah I'm not a pussy lib
>>51514489
This is pretty good answer I think.
How about other possibly unethical technology like surveillance technology or torture devices?
/k/ here. Of course.
2bh I wish I could get a job working on happening related tech
Another ethical question for /g/:
Would you deploy Google hardware (ChromeBooks) in a public school?
>>51514433
Fair disclosure: I'm a /k/ regular.
>Would you work on an atomic bomb?
I'd be extremely hesitant. Lot of environmental damage and health problems long after the war is over. Just stick with conventional explosives instead.
>How about a new type of gun barrel?
Hellyes.
>Math equation that ends up making hitting targets easier?
More precise weapons means less collateral damage and civilian casualties, so yes.
>>51514664
>surveillance technology
To target individuals, yes. Mass surveillance, hellno.
>torture devices
Nope.
>>51514664
I'd work on surveillance tech for James bond terrorism killing stuff but not for mass surveillance of citizens. I'd just hand them shit from my tool box for torturing
>>51514433
no, no, no what the fuck
>>51514787
>Would you deploy Google hardware (ChromeBooks) in a public school?
Introducing school kids into google dragnet would be extremely unethical, then again even I have a price.
Generally speaking I would probably do anything that is in legal bounds if the pay is good enough. There is the free market idea that higher price should make less ethical choices more expensive therefore less feasible.
These thoughts bother me but I think whatever decision person makes, I am not going to condemn him as long has the decision is his own and he thinks about if first.
The "I'm just doing my job" justification isn't enough whether it's against or not because it outsources the decision-making to a third party. In this case where you are the engineer and the third party is some higher up, the engineer holds the best knowledge about the ethicacy of the weapon so he should influence the decision.
>>51514787
>>51515185
This question should be what the thread is about. Google is pushing Chromebooks in school districts across the country.
>>51515185
>the engineer holds the best knowledge about the ethicacy of the weapon
Why? Isn't some biology expert more competent in estimating environmental damage than nuclear physicist for example?
>>51517700
Good point. I don't believe the biology expert is truly competent to guage the national burden r benefit from weaponry either. It's an odd old world--technology advance forces man into a position of arbitrating decisions w/o the requisite wisdom beforehand.
I'd rather work on weapons than give non-free software to children.
I would not write on any software where the life of people would be at stake when something goes wrong. Lets me sleep well.
>>51518481
Stay out of systems programming then anon, you'll be happier.
Nuclear bomb yes out of sheer interest in nuclear tech. I would be extremely concerned about its use outside of testing though and the entities in charge of controlling them.
Guns and targeting stuff no. More out of a major lack of interest in ME and CS than anything else though I'm not particularly pro-gun.
If you want me to answer ethics questions you'll have to throw me EE ethics problems because that's my field of expertise.
>>51518434
Thats why decisions are made higher up the chain. In theory man responsible for decision would consult a lot of different experts and is good enough statistician/economist, just scientist in general, to combine estimates into bigger and more complete picture.
Thats not how things are done in real life tho, kek.
>>51518604
God rules in the affairs of men. I'm often convinced they're's inscrutably subtle comedy behind it all.
>>51514433
Fortunately I am worse than a codemonkey , so I will never come with things that cause suffering to humanity.
That's a plus side.
>>51514433
Depends how much they are willing to pay honestly.
I'd say no, but i was never in a situation where i was offered millions of drugdollars for my knowledge
I like to think that i'd have integrity to say no
>>51514664
>torture
What if we could find new torture methods that don't leave permanent scars ( neither physical nor psychological) like some kind of "ethical" torture?
>Would you work on an atomic bomb?
I don't care about people dying.
>How about a new type of gun barrel?
As above.
>Math equation that ends up making hitting targets easier?
As above.
>Where do you draw the line if any?
I wouldn't work on tracking equipment and breaking crypto.
>>51519554
>I wouldn't work on tracking equipment and breaking crypto.
but you don't care about people dying mr.roboto, why do you care about surveillance?
>>51519579
A weird form of hypocrisy, I guess. I like to preserve whatever shreds of privacy I have left.
>>51514433
This is for me a difficult question, and something I have occasionally thought quite seriously about.
On the one hand, there is the challenge of all of it. It would be really fun, I feel like, to work on the Manhattan Project, for example, just because you are doing something so big and so new and so different. The power from that seems fantastic. I like to work and I like to work on puzzels like that.
But on the other hand, you are doing something so troubling, and so, truly sickening. I have never really experienced wars directly, but I have friends who have lived through them, and I do not beleive the I would support a war in any circumstances. I would consider it but I feel that ultimatley I would rather not at all work than work on that.
I guess that basically answers the question.
>>51519454
if torture doesnt at least leave psychological scars, its not effective torture
>>51519664
You could erase memory after, for example. If there would be memory-erasion-without-consequinces technology. Torture still would be torture, but no memory of it later if you spilled your beans!
>>51519702
And what if you could like, get in matrix, and like, go to the future and shizz? That way torture wouldn't be torture
>>51519702
if i dont remember it, what kind of effect should it have on me? i guess you could show footage of the previous torture and then threaten more torture, so you would always know you were tortured even if you cant remember it, but that knowledge alone would be torture, thats some real gangster shit.
>>51514664
Were you perhaps responding to >>51514530?
I got your back man
>>51519727
You w0t m8
