Vviewpoints
DOI: 10.1145/1400181.1400190
Computing Ethics
Computer Experts:
Guns-for-Hire or Professionals?
Considering the responsibilities of those who build systems
fundamental to significant social functions, institutions, and values.
IN THE 1980S, when I first began
thinking and writing about ethics and computing, there was
much speculation about how
computing would and should
develop as an occupation or a set of occupations. At that time, of course, one
had to turn to the histories of other
fields to learn about paths to professionalization. With more than 25 years
behind us, the picture remains unclear.
What is the state of the field of computing now and where should it go?
Professionalization is of interest not
for its own sake, but for what it would
do to promote a socially responsible
deployment of computing expertise.
To get quickly to the heart of the matter, we might use a distinction as a
foil: although it oversimplifies a complex situation, the distinction between
guns-for-hire and professionals frames
the issues of professionalization in
stark form. A gun-for-hire is someone
who puts his or her expertise up for
sale to the highest bidder; he or she
will do anything anyone wants as long
as it is legal. By contrast, and in what is
admittedly an idealized paradigm, professionals have standards; they take
responsibility, individually and collectively, for setting standards of practice
acknowledging that law is limited and
will not adequately protect the values
that should guide the field. Typically,
professions act collectively through an
organization that promulgates and enforces a code of ethics and professional
conduct, and that articulates the core
values of the profession, for example
life (in medicine), safety (in engineering), and accuracy (in auditing). Are
computer experts guns-for-hire or professionals?
Sociological accounts of professions
have suggested that we think of professions as systems or mechanisms for
managing expertise. A group convinc-
es society that restrictions should be
placed on who engages in a particular
occupation. It convinces society there
is a body of knowledge that should be
mastered before one practices, for example, before one treats the sick or
represents another in a court of law or
audits a financial statement. The group
convinces society that competence can
only be determined by those who have
already mastered the relevant body of
knowledge. Thus, experts, not outsiders, should be in charge of specifying
requirements for the field and deciding who has met the requirements.
When a group successfully makes
these claims, society grants the group
the power of self-regulation. However,
this power is granted in exchange for
the group’s commitment to manage its
activities to achieve social good, or at
least not in ways that are harmful to society. When doctors professionalized,
the intention was to distinguish themselves from “charlatans” and “quacks,”
those who claimed they could heal
patients but who had no scientific understanding of how the human body
worked. Once the system of medicine
was established, patients could expect
that when they went to a “doctor,” they
would be treated by someone with a
certain level of competence. This serves
the interests of those who are sick and,
in turn, the broader society.
Professionalization often occurs
against a backdrop of concerns about
the pressures of the marketplace; that
is, professionalization is targeted, in
part at least, to take certain issues out
of the marketplace. When an occupational group has specified standards
and articulated its values, then members will (at least, they are expected to)
refuse to do anything inconsistent with
those standards and values—no matter how much a client or customer is
willing to pay. The standards and values become part of the professional
culture.
The distinction between guns-for-hire and professionals doesn’t map
neatly onto computing. Rather than
a sharp division, there seems to be a
ILLUS TRATION B Y ADAM MCCAULE Y