Programmers Need a Hippocratic Oath – OneZero

One study from North Carolina State University has suggested that reading ACM’s code of ethics, on its own, doesn’t have much of an effect on individual decision-making. Nevertheless, I believe studying such a code arms readers with the language needed to describe types of ethical infractions. Establishing a code of ethics gives potential whistleblowers a leg to stand on so that an engineer could say, “We cannot publish this until it complies with our company’s ethical standards.” Indeed, other research has suggested that a code, complemented with a more holistic approach to building an ethical culture, can effectively change employee behavior. As major CS schools such as Stanford and MIT start to build ethics training into their curricula, hopefully the next generation of engineers can bring those lessons into the workplace.