coding values: integrating ethics into tech

let's not wait for regulators to catch up with the speed of tech innovation

More tech writings moved here:

I rarely experience anger. Yet, the tech scene presents many tickets for emotional rollercoasters and I got to ride one while meeting with the founder of a year-old startup. Their offering? An executive coaching platform where high-level execs get matched with performance coaches. The coaching sessions happen on the startup’s video conferencing platform, which records all the calls.

"Our business strategy bets on gathering sufficient amount of video recordings to adequately train AIs," the founder shared, "with the ultimate goal of eventually replacing the executive coaches to reduce costs.”

“Dang,” I thought to myself as I sank into my seat with discomfort, remembering that Universal Basic Income has not been implemented or even tested yet much. “How are you figuring your consent flows?” I followed up.

“Well, coaches know we collect data,” he replied. “Thought they are unaware what it’s for.”

Uh. The old feeling of outrage arose in me. “How do you go figuring the moral compass of this?”, I continued.

“So far, we haven’t seen a need for a moral framework. When it arises, we will refer to some external guidelines on coaching, hopefully floating somewhere on the internet.”¹

But hey, svitlana, transformers get trained on data that also was collected without consent? Yes, and I’d argue that Transformers creators didn’t have as much choice space as the founder who has a personal connection with a few dozen of coaches.

Technologists these days are the people holding some of the strongest powers. A striking majority of Americans, sixty percent to be exact, spend more than five hours petting their phones, switching between a dozen applications daily. These hours represent a substantial amount of our waking time, filled with moments of interaction that shape and influence us, consciously and unconsciously. Yet, we, as end users, have little control over the nature of these interactions. We entrust technologists, hoping they navigate these choices with our best interests in mind.

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After soaking myself in San Francisco as a technologist, I realized that morality is far from consideration in the tech world. It's as though there are two parallel universes: the world of humanities, rich with ethical contemplation, and the tech world, isolated, driven by innovation and efficiency.

“Svitlana, your founder story is just a temporary loophole before the fix from government regulations comes along,” my hopeful friend consoled me.

I doubt so. Unless we change who gets to serve in public governmental services,I expect there will always be a massive delay between the speed of tech and the speed of regulations fixing the immoral gaps in it.

Instead of waiting for senators to get educated on the architecture of Transformers, I suggest the better plan of action is to add a layer of moral thoughtfulness directly into our products. I hold onto the naive hope for a moral operating system, where the next generation of creators will intentionally consider the ethical impact of their work.

The push for a moral compass must originate with the creators themselves. And perhaps such an ethical revolution in tech will escalate once AI democratizes coding abilities, opening the doors for digital product craft to non-tech creators.

How about a bottom line, you ask? Well. It is an optimization problem and I hold conviction that sustainable business and moral integrity can co-exist. It is not either or, but rather yes and. The future tech landscape will offer a lot more products, thanks to skill democratization, and users will have more choice to pick one that aligns with their core values.

I realize that I, too, have a role to play. As a product thinker, I can add criteria of “moral impact” to the feature prioritization framework. I can start bringing ethics to people’s awareness because I love imagining what the world would be like if the products we use were created by people who genuinely care.

P.S.: please challenge me.

1. perhaps what frustrates me the most is the founder’s okayness with it. His high conviction is that you don’t need to think about moralities. Let the international coaching federation figure it out and until then.. enjoy the capitalistic ride.