Jermiah Robinson

Developing and working on websites is a lot harder than it seems. There are multiple factors that can go into one’s code, from requests and additions to even security vulnerabilities and many more. We can see this in Sourour’s work “The Code I’m Still Ashamed Of.” In the story, we see that Sourour was hired to develop a page for a client who needed a quiz configured and set up for patients to use. This quiz is for the effects of a drug that the client distributed as a prescription to individuals. However, the quiz in return would only give the same drug over and over unless the individual stated they were allergic or already taking it. This error that Sourour did not notice was what led to constant issues with the drug and even a suicide. In this Case Analysis I will argue that Kantian Deontology shows us that the code was morally problematic because Sourour’s code specifically to advertise the drug to young people (teens), and that the drug had serious side effects that should have been acknowledged and that Sourour should have done something differently because of its serious effects and concern from the project manager.

The ACM Code of Ethics is a strong standing point to go off of when analyzing this case further. The Code of Ethics provides many moral guidelines that any professional who uses computers must adhere to in order to stay morally right. In this story however, we see that two main rules were broken here in regard to what happened. When viewing the code of ethics and comparing what happened to this scenario, we see that 1.1 of the AMC code of ethics states that professionals should be contributing to society and to human beings as well. The quiz code however does not adhere to this as the first section, specifically targeting people of young age and not giving other recommendations to those who could be having suicidal thoughts or other conditions. While the code is not of Sourour’s character, the code itself violates this first section due to how it does not minimize negative consequences, and this will be covered further. When reading further, the ACM code of ethics also states for human beings that professionals must also provide a safe natural environment to them and that it must also meet social needs and be accessible to all. As a result, the quiz code does not simply do this either. With its marketing targeting teens, the responses it provides does not support the ACM code of ethics and instead recommends the person in question a drug that the clinical company provides instead. Its main intention was to provide other options to users who may be having specific problems like depression or even basic symptoms like coughing and wheezing. However, the code instead provides the drug the company sells and does not provide anything else to the user unless they state that they are allergic or already taking the drug. This small overlook completely ignores the ACM code of ethics and points the company in a very negative light, especially after the reported suicide that occurred when a user was facing severe depression and had no help to go to. With Sourour’s failure at acting morally in the sense with his own code, he violated the ACM code of ethics due to the massive liabilities which led to consequences of lives lost, and the harm and targeting that the quiz does to younger teens.

We can also use Kantian Deontology to analyze this case even further from this point, being able to see that Sourour should have acted when he was told about the issues that his quiz had. Sourour failed to notice any of the consequences his could have on the general public with the usage of the quiz, and chose to not act on a glaring inconsistency that arose during testing. This quiz also pushes for a targeted demographic that does not give people the respect that they need as well. To advertise this medicine like that, Sourour completely violates both the ACM code of ethics and Kantian Deontology at once by writing and making the code available that led to multiple lives lost at the cost of a single overlooked warning.

We can use Mary Beth Armstong’s “Confidentiality: A Comparison Across the Professions of Medicine, Engineering and Accounting”, and look into how unethical this quiz is in addition to above.  Mary here states that individuals in professions need to cater to public interest. In this case, we can use Sourour’s quiz as an example of what not to do for catering to the public interest. The quiz itself targets users that are younger and does not have any inclusivity. Along with the medicine recommendations being mostly incorrect for user needs. Sourour did not consider the impact that his work would have for those who need medication. This failure at consideration resulted in the deaths of many and a key case in which a young person committed suicide due to the wrong medication not being given nor any questions about their mental health from the medication the company was perscribing. This obligation was needed to be met, but Sourour unfortunately did not meet this and as a result, violates this reasoning. As we read along further, we can see Mary’s way of thinking with job professions. Besides basic obligations to users, social responsibilities still exist when considering the job that Sourour is in. Sourour’s responsibilities include the care that individuals that use the site need. We can see this when the project manager is wondering why almost all of the questions lead straight to the client’s medication instead of the other medications it should supply from the quiz. Without the proper care and attention needed for the code, Sourour let this error go and it led to eventual harm of a person almost right away. This code violates this way of thinking with professions, and highlights the key issue that Sourour has when writing this code during the time. Mary also covers that basic evaluation of work is needed as well, and as we saw in the story, Sourour did not give this type of evaluation to his own code, leading to the code being completely unethical and overall, his role in the work for the client.

We can use Kantian Deontology again for this exact case. We see again that Sourour failed to actually ensure that the quiz worked properly and passed up looking further into the quiz once the question was brought up that it was only showing the client’s medication for most answers. Being a programmer is a huge responsibility to tackle, with so many errors that could easily be found and that there wasn’t any consideration from Sourour to question the actual code that he created. Errors are common in programming and are bound to happen when writing any piece of code. In this case, we can see that harm comes from the code itself as well in this case by not recommending the right medication to those who actually need it. Overall in this case, we see that Sourour failed to actually meet the responsibilities given to him as a programmer for a client, and this failure resulted in the harm that followed him from now on as this story.

In conclusion, we were able to tie both the ACM code of ethics and Mary’s study to show that Sourour’s code was unethical with Kantian Deontology. The code itself violated the ACM code of ethics by not minimizing the negative consequences of the code. While contributing to society of course by working and developing the code, he does not meet up ethical standards due to the massive consequences and lack of moral concern for his quiz. Mary as well confirms this, showing that Sourour had a responsibility as a programmer for the client and that he was supposed to make sure that his code was working fine, especially when it was brought up that something wrong did indeed happen with the code. All of this has led up to a death of a teenager and has harmed many others in the process due to not checking over the lines of code used for the quiz.