I am writing an essay about ethics in computing. I wish to tackle what I perceive to be a blindspot in ethics communication neglecting to appeal to the interests and needs of the audience, resulting in a disconnect and resulting disillusionment within the computing community. Write me a 2500 word essay on this using the following outline, with citations:

# Intro
- Rise in discussions about the need for ethics in computing
- motivated by what have been labelled as breaches in ethics in key fields such as data privacy and AI
- In turn, there has been discussions on why and how ethics can be improved within the field of computing to address these needs
# thesis: 
In this essay I will show that discussions on improving ethics within computing, wilfully or otherwise, share a blind spot in refusing to acknowledge the inconvenient reasonableness of Computer Science professionals being self-interested economic agents, and correspondingly refusing to recognise the need to motivate concern beyond oversimplistic moralistic arguments. Conversely, by reframing arguments put forth by activists and analysing additional mechanisms by which impressionable members of the community may become disillusioned, I aim to show the unreasonable pervasiveness of negative optics in further disincentivising members of the computer science field from becoming interested in ethics involvement. In doing so, I wish to propose a renewed focus on improving optics in ethics communication and education within the field of computer science, providing more realistic and relevant messaging that would encourage rather than push away its audience.
# Literature review
- HAI suggests that a solution of researchers considering the negative outcomes of their research and codifying what is "improper use" of the code
	- argue that "You can’t prevent all the misuses, but you can at least provide a caveat that people can use as guidelines.”
	- codify it by enforcing it in HAI's funding process
		- "Stanford HAI’s [funding process requires](https://hai.stanford.edu/news/new-approach-mitigating-ais-negative-impact) exactly that kind of ethical and social review. Likewise, professional societies and academic journals can insist that any new published research includes a thorough discussion of potential problems."
- Solutions that assume the problem to be on individuals being incapable of working through ethical quandaries, and in turn propose frameworks by which to streamline thinking through the problems
	- from the paper "teaching of computer ethics"
		- A different emphasis for computer ethics was advocated by Donald Gotterbarn (Gotterbarn, 1991), who believed that computer ethics should be seen as a professional ethics devoted to the development and advancement of standards of good practice and codes of conduct for computing professionals. In the 1990s Gotterbarn’s professional ethics approach purported that Computer Science students should be taught their professional responsibilities, standards and reasoning skills to deal with emerging and future ethical issues relevant to their profession as well as specific values and avoid malpractice (Iqbal & Beigh, 2017). Gotterbarn’s position was complemented by the publication of the ACM’s Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct in 1991 which included recommendations to teach social and ethical issues as part of undergraduate Computer Science curricula (Bynum, 2008, 1992; Fuller et al., 2010; Tucker, 1991).
	- Ethical Computing Protocol
		- https://news.mit.edu/2023/bringing-social-ethical-responsibilities-computing-forefront-0608
		- designed to train computer science students to think in a better and more accurate way about the social implications of technology by breaking the process down into more manageable steps
- Papers that attempt to appeal to sense of morals in audience by arguing for the need of positive responsibility, that as wielders of power we hold a higher degree of responsibility not only to avoid harm, but also to more boldly act as political agents
	- Gotterbarn
		- ‘‘The world will no longer accept the view that BUGS arise in programs by Spontaneous Generation. The BUGS (errors) were put there by people who should know better’’
		- Everything that an engineer develops has a direct impact on mankind. Ethics and professional responsibility is [sic] a significant element of engineering [3, emphasis mine].
	- reflected in ethics education, teaching of Therac-25 case
		- engineer overconfidence
		- failed to believe end user report and caused drastic repercussions
- shaming the audience
	- wired article 
		- I've watched brilliant computer scientists display such woeful ignorance of the populations they were studying that I laughed in their faces. I've watched military scientists present their lethal innovations with childlike enthusiasm while making no mention of whom the weapons are being used on. There are few things scarier than a scientist who can give an academic talk on how to shoot a human being but can't reason about whether you should be shooting them at all.
		  
		  The fact that so many computer scientists are ignorant or disdainful of non-technical approaches is worrisome because in my work, I'm constantly confronting questions that can't be answered with code.
	- boston globe article
		- Simultaneously imagining their products as changing the world and not being important enough to require safety precautions, they behave like kids in a shop full of loaded AK-47’s
# The problem
- assume that computer scientists would become ethical by providing nudges
	- assume that the problem is with a lack of knowledge
	- assume that somehow computer scientists are completely unaware that users would *use* their product and that this can have consequences
	- assume that assertions of responsibility are sufficient in convincing audiences
- share commonality of placing onus with the individual and assuming that the individual will willingly stick their neck out for "the common good"
- Rogaway calls this ethic of responsibility
	- . It is the doctrinal view. The putative norm contends that scientists and engineers have an obligation to select work that promotes the social good (a positive right), or, at the very least, to refrain from work that damages mankind or the environment (a negative right)
	- the ethic of responsibility became—at least rhetorically—the doctrinal norm. Increasing numbers of scientists and engineers, as well as their professional organizations, began to engage on issues of social responsibility.
- Yet for all this talk and efforts, contradictorily see the previously shown fear of rising moral bankruptcy
- Rogaway notes that ethic of responsibility is itself in decline, poses an issue that the very premise of the prior solutions may no longer hold
	-  In nearly 20 years advising students at my university, I have observed that a wish for right livelihood 27 almost never figures into the employment decisions of undergraduate computer science students. And this isn’t unique to computer scientists: of the five most highly ranked websites I found on a Google search of deciding among job offers, not one suggests considering the institutional goals of the employer or the social worth of what they do.

# Further proof of decline of ethic of responsibility
- reddit comments
	- Only people who live under the bridge are "not exposed to the topic of ethics". Ethical issues are ignored not because of ignorance, but simply because nobody cares and also monies. Everyone is a prostitute, you just need to find the right price.
	- While I often do stress about my work and I do understand _I_ have a bigger hand in unethical treatment of my fellow man, I still think I shouldn't risk my career and livelihood by uselessly throwing myself on a sword.
- https://www.thestranger.com/tech/2018/04/10/26025092/the-dystopian-future-of-fake-news-is-being-developed-in-seattle
	- And then, when I pointed out that television has, indeed, lead to great harm (do you think Donald Trump would be in the White House if not for reality TV?), they all shrugged it off. As Kemelmacher-Shlizerman told Adler when he asked if she is afraid of the technology that she herself is developing, she said, after a long pause. "I'm a technologist. I'm a computer scientist, so, not really... I'm not worried too much."
	- She said, essentially, that it's her job to build the tech, and other peoples' job to consider the implications.
- emphasis on shrugging off, not even excuse given
- cryptography paper
	-  One recent faculty candidate, a data-mining researcher whose work seemed a compendium of DoD-funded projects for socially reprehensible aims, admitted that she felt no social responsibility. “I am a body without a soul,” she earnestly explained. It was sincere—and creepy

# Link
- Alternative proposed by Rogaway
	- foster a more open-minded attitude to unfamiliar models, approaches, and goals

# Reasoning about decline of ethic of responsibility
- "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." # Upton Sinclair
- Tough to answer how to actually overcome the overwhelming economic pressures against being ethical, and nonsensical to talk about how to enforce organic interest
- However, before even talking about incentivising ethical behaviour, need to recognise that the opposite side of the coin exists, acknowledge the disincentives counter-intuitively generated by ethics communication

# Disincentives
- Negative effects of blindly promoting positive responsibility
	
	- positive responsibility paper
		- assertions run counter to individual incentives
			- It says that one’s own interests and the interests of others are both important, and must be balanced against one another’’ [10, p. 82, emphasis Rachels’]. This is indeed commonsense. Yet, no matter how much one calculates and balances in every day life, one still finds in the larger picture of life’s actions an overall theme that either favors service to others or service to one’s perceived self- interests. The struggle between following one’s own interest or serving others before oneself cannot be overcome by commonsense.
		- some assertions are nonsensical to begin with
			- Here Gotterbarn holds every engineer morally ‘‘responsible’’ for all bad effects to mankind.
			- Whether or not Gotterbarn actually holds the position he appears to, it can nevertheless be argued that the position is decidedly overkill. Without defending bad programming, design, testing or support (such as in the Therac-25 case), programmers and others who are only human ought to be defended against the overzealous. Pushing an unattainable ideal may actually be counterproductive; what sounds good to the public may cause cynicism among those in the field.
		- A theory that holds too many people responsible suffers the same problems of vacuity or overkill. First, it becomes window-dressing. Because it cannot really be applied internally, positive responsibility only looks good from the outside. Second, it may cause resentment if professionals feel that they are blamed unfairly
		-  Worse, they may think that ethics has nothing to do with computing because all they know of ethics is models that do not apply. Many basically good people have rejected ethics in the workplace because they think that ethics must mean, for example, Christian ethics. They have trouble seeing how Jesus might sell anything and not simply give it away, so they leave ‘‘ethics’’ at home. One should instead realize that ‘‘responsible computing,’’ like life, has a plurality of equally good situation-dependent meanings and answers not covered by high-minded, absolute admonitions like ‘‘positive responsibility.’’
	- exclusionary, even if want to be relatively ethical by negative responsibility, unable to meet the at time unrealistic bars of expectation
	- link to reddit comment
		- While I often do stress about my work and I do understand _I_ have a bigger hand in unethical treatment of my fellow man, I still think I shouldn't risk my career and livelihood by uselessly throwing myself on a sword.
- presumptive and accusatory tone also seen in other communication
	
- Excess emphasis on compliance
	- compliance does have a place when it comes to forcing management to buckle
		- boston globe article
			- such a shift would sometimes be resisted for business reasons, but working codes of ethics give engineers (and others) more power to say “no.” If breaking ethics rules would mean the end of someone’s career, an employer couldn’t easily replace someone who refuses to cheat. If the systems for enforcement are well-built, a competitor couldn’t easily work around those standards. Uniform codes of ethics give engineers more of a voice in protecting the public.
	- "Rogerson advised that computer ethics should constitute a real engagement with industry that cultivates a genuine sensitivity to ethical concerns in the creation, development, and implementation of technologies, a genuine sensitivity that stands in marked contrast to ethics as “mere compliance.”" - ### [**Computer ethics** beyond mere compliance](https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JICES-10-2014-0043/full/html)
		- in contrast to HAI and emphasis on codes of conduct
	- reasonable that people would be disinterested in mere compliance 
	- mere compliance could have been one of the factors that led to the "I'm a technologist. I'm a computer scientist, so, not really... I'm not worried too much" statement
		- someone makes the rules, we just follow
- Yellow Journalism and fear mongering - lack of relevance to the average person
	- gotterberg
	- boston globe article
		- cambridge analytica scientist isnt even a computer scientists, data science and psychology
		- assertion that "there exists many cases like this"
		- pointed out that most actors are not even computer science graduates
			- https://cfiesler.medium.com/what-our-tech-ethics-crisis-says-about-the-state-of-computer-science-education-a6a5544e1da6
- Bad actors in ethics space, bad name
	- google AI ethicist lie for clout
	- Rogerson went on to warn that, unless we remain diligent against it, computer ethics might come to be driven by personal and professional ambitions that prioritize funding, grants, and establishing academic or industry fiefdoms over influencing the ethical culture of computing as a profession - ### [**Computer ethics** beyond mere compliance](https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JICES-10-2014-0043/full/html)
- seen as a specialisation because of standalone ethics mods
	- https://cfiesler.medium.com/what-our-tech-ethics-crisis-says-about-the-state-of-computer-science-education-a6a5544e1da6

So keeping in mind the importance of optics and not giving a negative impression upon the attention-deficit crowd, what kinds of ethics communication could actually be good?

Rogerton's suggestions provide a useful lens that seem to have been positively received by the community
# Non-negative optics
- Honest and reasonable suggestions to become more engaged with ethical quandries
	- Learn some privacy tools
	- Get a systems-level view. Attend to that which surrounds our field.
	- Be open to diverse models. Regard all models as suspect and dialectical

# Positive optics
- appeal to the crowd rather than shame them, encouragement
	- "I was worried about privacy in that world, and that’s why I was working on cryptography." - Diffie

# Rogerton example
No cutesy adversaries. There is a long tradition of cutesiness in our field.
People spin fun and fanciful stories. Protocol participants are a caricatured Alice
and Bob. Adversaries are little devils, complete with horns and a pitchfork. Some
crypto talks are so packed with clip-art you can hardly find the content. I have
never liked this, but, after the Snowden revelations, it started to vex me like
never before.
Cryptography is serious, with ideas often hard to understand. When we try
to explain them with cartoons and cute narratives, I don’t think we make our
contributions easier to understand. What we actually do is add in a layer of
obfuscation that must be peeled away to understand what has actually been
done. Worse, the cartoon-heavy cryptography can reshape our internal vision
of our role. The adversary as a $53-billion-a-year military-industrial-surveillance
complex and the adversary as a red-devil-with-horns induce entirely different
thought processes. If we see adversaries in one of these ways, we will actually see at a different set of problems to work on than if we see things in the other.
Whimsical adversaries engender a chimerical field.184
As a graduate student, I wanted our field to feel fantastical. I wanted a
discipline full of space aliens and communicating millionaires. Not only was it
fun, but it stroked my ego, effectively embodying the sentiment: I am a scientist
too smart to have to deal with small-minded concerns.
At this point, I think we would do well to put ourselves in the mindset of a
real adversary, not a notional one: the well-funded intelligence agency, the profit-
obsessed multinational, the drug cartel. You have an enormous budget. You
control lots of infrastructure. You have teams of attorneys more than willing to
interpret the law creatively. You have a huge portfolio of zero-days.185 You have a
mountain of self-righteous conviction. Your aim is to Collect it All, Exploit it All,
Know it All.186 What would frustrate you? What problems do you not want a
bunch of super-smart academics to solve?
# Conclusion
"Authors and filmmakers, futurists and scientists, have laid out many
competing visions for man’s demise. For example, Bill Joy worries about
nanotechnology turning the biosphere into gray goo, or super-intelligent robots
deciding that man is a nuisance, or a pet. I don’t lose sleep over such
possibilities; I don’t see them as our likely end. But a creeping surveillance that
grows organically in the public and private sectors, that becomes increasingly
comprehensive, entwined, and predictive, that becomes an instrument for
assassination, political control, and the maintenance of power—well, this vision
doesn’t merely seem possible, it seems to be happening before our eyes" - Rogerton

Importance of actually attracting the audience and appealing to them, rather than just assuming that they will listen just because it is "good". Realism and ironically the ability to empathise with the audience for them not to ignore you.