My personal definition of a moral or ethical action is one that is made with the intention of maximizing other people’s well being and minimizing their suffering. Basically, trying to do right by others. Using this definition, I would say the most morally ethical computer luminary is Richard Stallman and the least is Steve Jobs.
Richard Stallman is more ethical than Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates because all of his actions have been in pursuit of a goal that he believes will make the world a better place for everyone. Cleary a smart man and a talented engineer, Stallman could have become very wealthy by creating and selling software that doesn’t respect what he sees as a user’s basic right to freedom. He didn’t do that, though. Instead he created the GNU Project, started the Free Software Foundation, and created a movement that is still going strong today. In the article “In praise of Richard Stallman, GNU’s open sourcer,” the author Dan Gilmor collected quotes outlining Stallman’s philosophy. Stallman said, “So that I can continue to use computers without violating my principles, I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free.” Stallman was not willing to compromise on what he believed was right. He thought the world would be a better place if software was free and acted in a way to make that vision more realistic with seemingly no ulterior motives. That cannot be said for any of the other influential engineers on the list, which is why Stallman is number one for me. Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates are ethically similar in some regards. They all have incidents of being cutthroat in business and treating people as a means to an end on their path to becoming extremely wealthy. I would say Steve Jobs is the worst of the three because Zuckerberg and Gates both dedicate a lot of time and money to philanthropy, which Jobs notably did not. While Gates is “the largest philanthropic supporter of primary and secondary education in the United States” and “has spent billions of dollars to fight polio, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and other diseases,” Steve Jobs routinely used to park in handicapped spots because he didn’t want to wait to look for a space. With his personal wealth, Jobs could’ve done a lot of good for people who needed clean drinking water or safe schools, and he chose not to. If the question was changed to "who has the most positive effect on the world?" rather than "who was the most ethical?" that would definitely change my ranking order. Stallman would be the lowest on my list because his impact into the average person’s daily life is much smaller than the other three. I had no idea who he was until I became a computer science major, but I bet almost everyone could tell you exactly who Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg are. In his article “Steve Jobs, World’s Greatest Philanthropist,” Dan Pallotta claims that arguments like the one I made in the previous paragraph about Steve Jobs’s character are incorrect because for-profit companies can do just as much good, if not more good, than non-profits. He argued, “What a loss to humanity it would have been if Jobs had dedicated the last 25 years of his life to figuring out how to give his billions away, instead of doing what he does best.” Where what he does best is building things that have made the world objectively better. Devices that help “the blind read text and identify currency”, “physicians improve their performance”, and “charities raise money.” Between Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple, I would say Apple has had the most meaningful effect on the world over the past ten years. For that reason, I agree with Pallota that Jobs has had the most positive impact on the world.
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Coding is not a superpower because superpowers are given not earned.
Spiderman was bit by a radioactive spider. The Flash was struck by lightning. Superman was born with powers. That’s not how developing programming skills works, and it may even be dangerous to view it that way. I understand the general argument that programming is a superpower because it’s powerful and a very small percentage of the world’s population does it. In his article “Programming, power, and responsibility,” Andy J. Ko explains this concept of power very well. He claims, “code has a capacity for power and that code is granted power the moment someone incorporates a program into their life in some way.” By this he means that by building things others depend on, you inherently have power over whoever comes in contact with it. For example, if you write an app that manages clients’ personal finances, you have the power to protect or to not protect their information. I don’t find this argument convincing because it can apply to any specialty profession. Are lawyers superheroes because when we hire them to be our lawyer we are trusting them to interpret the law for us? Are dentists superheroes because we depend on them to keep our teeth healthy? Are farmers superheroes because they produce the vast majority of food we eat—the most basic thing we need to stay alive? They are not because if all of those people are superheroes then the term is meaningless. People develop skills to follow a career path. They help the world run a little smoother with these skills and in exchange receive money. This is not superpowers at work— this is capitalism. I see rhetorically why this message of programming as a superpower is useful. In the YouTube video where Karlie Kloss says coding is a superpower she is doing it to encourage her young female fan base to consider taking a class in computer science. A similar message was shown in the “What Most Schools Don’t Teach” video to a similar end. If those videos make a single kid discover a passion they never knew they had then it’s hard to argue against the use of metaphor. I still don’t like the message that this wording is sending kids who start programming, though. You don’t fall into a vat of radioactive assembly code and develop programming skills. You take a class. You read articles. You figure it out and get better at it. You aren’t given the ability to program, you work at it. If kids don’t know this going in, they may think they’re the problem when they hit their first roadblock—for everyone else it comes naturally, but not for them. When I came to college I had never programmed before and taking my first CS class with a bunch of people who already knew what they were doing was really intimidating. There were definitely times when I thought about switching majors that first year, and I’m really glad I just stuck with it. Programming is not a superpower, but it is certainly powerful, marketable, and possible to learn if you keep trying. Hello! My name is Grace Kopp, and I’m a Senior majoring in Computer Science. I’m originally from Willowbrook, Illinois, which is one of the many suburbs of Chicago nobody can tell the difference between.
One of my biggest interests is spending time in nature. I grew up around a lake, so I’ve always loved boating, kayaking, and waterskiing. I also really enjoy hiking and camping. My goal is to visit every single National Park at least once in my lifetime. I’ve only been to twelve so far, so I have a long way to go, but it’s definitely something to look forward to. My favorite one I’ve visited is Crater Lake in Oregon. I’m also very interested in music. One of my favorite things to do is listen to an album start to finish while I go about my day doing other random tasks like homework and cleaning dishes. Some of my favorites are For Emma Forever Ago by Bon Iver, Is This It by The Strokes, and Wildflowers by Tom Petty. My first concert was actually Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in sixth grade, so I definitely peaked in 2010. This semester I’m taking a one-credit guitar class, and I’m cautiously optimistic about how that’s going to go. I came into Notre Dame as a math major because math was always my favorite subject in high school. I took the Intro to Engineering class just to cover my bases and fell in love with programming. I like logic puzzles and problem solving, and at its core, that’s exactly what computer science is. One of my favorite things about the field is that you never stop learning. At my internship this summer, I was working with engineers who have been programming for more than twenty years and they still look things up on stack overflow. I also like the idea of one day being able to create something that can make someone else’s life a little better in a tangible way. That ties into what I hope to get out of this class: to be a good good engineer—someone that does good work for good reason. I think it’ll be very interesting to talk through these issues that don’t necessarily have a right answer for two reasons. 1.) I can start to develop/strengthen/adjust my own point of view and 2.) I can understand the viewpoints of others I disagree with as actual people and not trolls on the internet. I think data privacy is the most pressing issue facing computer scientists and engineers today just because it’s been a problem for so long and it’s only getting worse. As we speak, our right to privacy isn’t being respected, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Even though it’s slowly but surely improving, I also see diversity in the software industry as a huge issue. My third biggest concern is so called “fake news” because all of the Russia/election stuff genuinely terrifies me. I’m particularly interested in discussing diversity in technology because its something that's talked about a lot when people are and aren't getting interviews. As a woman, I've heard some takes on why there aren't as many women in computer science as men that I've found a little upsetting, so I'm interested to hear those viewpoints from actual rational people because no progress is ever going to be made without conversation and mutual understanding. |
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