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by pcx66
4762 days ago
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I can't help but wonder how such a system can be practically implemented. I cannot imagine that engineers at companies like Google, Apple, MS etc, the ones working on stuff like Gmail, YouTube, iOS, would co-operate with such unethical practices. But it has been proved again and again that authority trumps conscious. |
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I'm sure some of the technologies I've worked on during my professional career could be used to do things under ethically dubious circumstances. They could also be used to do the exact same things with a sound ethical and legal basis that almost everyone would agree was reasonable. And they could also be used to do many other completely unrelated and useful things where there is no ethical dilemma at all. Context is everything.
I would guess that the majority of people who work in any kind of manufacturing or information services industry could say the same thing, probably including technicians working on communications systems at the kinds of organisation you mentioned. Most of those people have no way to know or influence the way their work will ultimately be used further down the line. Society is too big and too complex to expect action or accountability for everything at that level.
That means the only practical position is to say that responsibility for (mis)use of general purpose tools must lie with the (mis)user, and if the system isn't working, that is the level where any fixes need to be applied.