Jonathan Bellack

“In the state of Texas, professional engineers were originally licensed in 1937 after a boiler explosion caused the deaths of more than 300 school children. At that time, the boiler part that failed was mechanical. Today that part’s function is handled by software.” 1/7

If the senior engineers working for Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and their ilk had signed up to a rigorous code of ethics, would they have been OK shipping ad systems that overlook fraud, recommendation algorithms that trigger overuse, or AI test rigs that can get out to the public Internet? 6/7

“In the state of Texas, professional engineers were originally licensed in 1937 after a boiler explosion caused the deaths of more than 300 school children. At that time, the boiler part that failed was mechanical. Today that part’s function is handled by software.” 1/7

"They shall ensure that software has been adequately reviewed and tested before it is released to the public… Software engineers shall endorse only products that they have adequately reviewed and objectively agree with." 4/7

“In the state of Texas, professional engineers were originally licensed in 1937 after a boiler explosion caused the deaths of more than 300 school children. At that time, the boiler part that failed was mechanical. Today that part’s function is handled by software.” 1/7

"Whether we like it or not, software is important. It affects people’s lives. And the development practices most commonly used to produce software are not up to the task. It’s time for software development to grow up." 2/7

License to code? It's time for my favorite opinion that many of my past colleagues think is nuts. Licensing is how we ensure that consumers can trust the skills, safety, and ethics of professionals who have expertise that we can’t evaluate directly. Like software engineers. 1/6

The existence of edge cases and exceptions doesn’t invalidate my point. Other professions have spent decades in active discussion over appropriate qualifications and standards to protect our safety without undue burden. We need to have that same conversation about software engineering. 5/6

License to code? It's time for my favorite opinion that many of my past colleagues think is nuts. Licensing is how we ensure that consumers can trust the skills, safety, and ethics of professionals who have expertise that we can’t evaluate directly. Like software engineers. 1/6

If software engineers had to sign an ethics pledge to enter the field, and could be disbarred like lawyers, writing dishonest software would be a huge personal risk. The licensing board would also be a powerful ally to help them stand up to dishonest employers who want code that lies. 3/6

License to code? It's time for my favorite opinion that many of my past colleagues think is nuts. Licensing is how we ensure that consumers can trust the skills, safety, and ethics of professionals who have expertise that we can’t evaluate directly. Like software engineers. 1/6

Explaining AI doomerism to my dad. He asked my opinion of the latest @nytimes.com piece by @michellegoldberg.bsky.social. I share my response verbatim in this week's Platformocracy. tl;dr: effective software safety and oversight needs to be independent from industry, not on their payroll. 1/6

Demis Hassabis' FINRA proposal is also a lousy model. Broker-dealer codes of conduct are nothing like evaluating the safety of pervasive, powerful software products like frontier models. They should be overseen and inspected by a funded government agency, more like the SEC or the FDA. 5/6

Explaining AI doomerism to my dad. He asked my opinion of the latest @nytimes.com piece by @michellegoldberg.bsky.social. I share my response verbatim in this week's Platformocracy. tl;dr: effective software safety and oversight needs to be independent from industry, not on their payroll. 1/6

If you think talk of "blood" is overblown, read this horror story in @motherjones.com about the Tumbler Ridge shooter's use of ChatGPT to fantasize and plan, and how the company “had decided not to alert authorities, despite the urging of some employees on OpenAI’s safety team.” 3/6

Explaining AI doomerism to my dad. He asked my opinion of the latest @nytimes.com piece by @michellegoldberg.bsky.social. I share my response verbatim in this week's Platformocracy. tl;dr: effective software safety and oversight needs to be independent from industry, not on their payroll. 1/6

“Blood and soil” politics are undermining our online future. Some of the biggest beneficiaries of the shift to online worlds are now trying to drag us back to an ancient world where physical ancestry is inescapable destiny. 1/4

This might sound ridiculous, but we are already being shunted toward nationalism and identity checks: forcing ByteDance to sell US Tiktok and requiring proof of age to access social media. Even the EU right to be forgotten, while well-intentioned, means the Internet changes by jurisdiction. 3/4

“Blood and soil” politics are undermining our online future. Some of the biggest beneficiaries of the shift to online worlds are now trying to drag us back to an ancient world where physical ancestry is inescapable destiny. 1/4

Is Google too big to succeed? If startups are flatworms, Google is now a blue whale – a massive, complex organism full of specialized organs and structures all designed to keep it alive, swimming, and consuming vast quantities of food (i.e., data and money). 1/4

This was another factor in my decision to leave Google. I don’t mean to say that I don’t believe in dialogue or compromise. But when the opposing side in every debate is “don’t rock the boat,” and you can’t proceed until everyone is satisfied, the results are often neutered and boring. 3/4

Is Google too big to succeed? If startups are flatworms, Google is now a blue whale – a massive, complex organism full of specialized organs and structures all designed to keep it alive, swimming, and consuming vast quantities of food (i.e., data and money). 1/4