The reasons we suffer these accountability challenges are often rooted in that anyone holding someone else accountable, may experience negative consequences to self...and those are often estimated as too high to do "the right thing".
If the governing part at the time of the Nazi trials actually held each and every person involved accountable, would they win the next election?
If a company holds their employees to the actual standards laid out by their policies or guidelines, what would attrition look like? Would they immediately be short staffed critial roles? Would they loose a key employee at a very inconventient time?
These are the real reasons preventing us from holding people accountable.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone tries to leverage this with their customer feature request tool.
Imagine having your customers write feature requests for your saas, that immediately triggers code generation and a PR. A virtual environment with that PR is spun up and served to that customer for feedback and refinement. Loop until customer has implemented the feature they would like to see in your product.
So, nothing is worthy of discussion or can claim any benefits over the incumbents until it has become an incumbent itself? How is it supposed to attract the necessary users to get bloated if they can’t talk about it in relation to the established players?
JS frameworks have often valued DX first over what it outputs. Frontend devs also frequently care more about a) their own tooling and b) how it looks, to a much higher priority than the performance and stability of their output. At least from my own experience in the community :)
Oh my god, yes this is hitting the nail on the head in a way I hadn't thought before. The bloat comes from the discipline (or lack of) more than the framework.
IMO, those who have only worked in React tend to be unfamiliar with the layers of native capability that React is built upon, and so they are stuck in the React bubble unless they want to learn a ton of (admittedly crufty, but useful) web fundamentals.
Solid.js is doing amazing w/re to its bundle size. Its been in development for something between 6-9 years depending on how you count and it is still very very slim.
Ironically, if you look at Sysco's stock price during the dotcom days, it's often correlated with Cisco spikes because clueless traders would accidentally buy the food logistics company stock instead of Cisco.
I was an engineer at Cisco in the 00’s and my FIL, a chef, just assumed I worked for Sysco and would tell people when they’d get deliveries. I can’t remember how it came up, but it went on for more than a decade, well after I’d moved on. Still makes me smile when I see a Sysco truck.
Not really, but in the days before open source was as accepted as today, many large companies had policies against using open source. I was working as a consultant at a Fortune 500 and was starting a new project. I wanted to use Java Spring for dependency injection and its other features. InfoSec said NO.
So I billed them for the next 3 months to write a Spring IOC clone, doing exactly the same thing to use on the project.
You fundamentally don’t understand either accountability or what people mean by “computers can’t be held accountable”. Who is at fault when a computer makes a mistake? That is accountability.
You cannot put a computer in jail. You cannot fine a computer. Please, stop torturing what people mean because you want AI to make decisions to absolve you of guilt.
Consider the Volkswagen scandal where code was written that fudged the results when in an emissions testing environment.
The only person to see major punishment for that was the software dev that wrote the code, but that decision to write that code involved far more people up the chain. THEY should be held accountable in some way or else nothing prevents them from using some other poor dev as a scapegoat.
No, you don’t just want to fix the problem every time until no problems are left. You want to force people to think about what they’re going to do so that problems that can be anticipated aren’t made in the first place.
All of the above. Whether or not one agrees with it, humans have a need for retribution, or as we prefer to call it to feel better about it, justice. And you cannot get retribution on LLMs.
Mixture of all three, but for the purposes of “accountability”, prevention of the behavior in the first place. But I don’t want to debate prisons when that’s derailing the larger point of “accountability in AI/computers”.
> Who is at fault when a computer makes a mistake?
"Fault" seeks to determine who is able to undo the mistake so that we can see that they undo it. It is possible the computer is the best candidate for that under some circumstances.
> That is accountability.
Thus we can conclude that computers are accountable, sometimes.
> You cannot put a computer in jail. You cannot fine a computer.
These are, perhaps, tools to try and deal with situations where the accountable refuse to see the mistake undone, but, similarly, computers can be turned off.
To stop people from making illegal decisions ahead of time, and not just to punish them after. If there is no accountability to an AI, then a person making a killer robot would have no reason to not make a killer robot. If they were more to be imprisoned for making a killer robot, then they would be less likely to make a killer robot.
In a world without accountability, how do you stop evil people from doing evil things with AI as they want?
Right, but as long as you have humans, you will probably need accountability.
If a human decided to delegate killing enemy combatants to a machine, and that machine accidentally killed innocent civilians, is it really enough to just reprogram the machine? I think you must also hold the human accountable.
(Of course, this is just a simplified example, and in reality there are many humans in the loop who share accountability, some more than others)
> If meant to prevent repeat bad behavior, then simply reprogramming the computer accomplished the same end goal.
Note the bad behaviour you're trying to prevent is not just the specific error that the computer made, but delegating authority to the computer to the level that it was able to make that error without proper oversight.
This sounds like a conflation of responsibility with accountability. A machine responsible for emitting a certain amount of radiation on a patient can and should be reprogrammed. The company and/or individuals that granted a malfunctioning radiation machine that responsibility need to be held accountable.
Improving the tool's safety characteristics is not the same as holding the user accountable because they made stupid choices with unsafe tools. You want them to change their behavior, no matter how idiot-proofed their new toolset is.
You’ve set up an either-or here that fails to take into account a wide spectrum of thought around accountability and punishment.
When it comes to computers, the computer is a tool. It can be improved, but it can’t be held any more accountable than a hammer.
At least that’s how it should be. Those with wealth will do whatever they feel they need to do to shun accountability when they create harm. That will no doubt include trying to pin the blame on AI.
This makes sense if the computer was programmed that way accidentally. If the computer is a cut out to create plausible deniability, then reprogramming it won't actually work. The people responsible will find a way to reintroduce a behavior with a similar outcome.
I think most people are missing the point about accountability and thinks, in typical American fashion, about punishment. Accountability is about being responsible for outcomes. That may mean legally responsible, but I think far more important is the knowledge that "the buck stops with me", someone who is entrusted with a task and knows that it is their job to accomplish that task. Said person may decide to use a computer to accomplish it, but the computer is not responsible for the correct outcome.
You want to be one of those "go to" people! They are put on the most challenging assignments, the most exciting opportunities, more often promoted, protected from above, last to let go and frequently asked to follow that leader to new assignments at new companies usually with higher titles and better comp.
It seems to me you have been spotted by your Sr. Director and given an opportunity to prove yourself as you did in your prior team. It's a logical move to take a high performer from one team, and try to prop up an underperforming team. It's about what's good for the company.
If this fails, you won't necessarily be blamed, but you'll have lost an opportunity to really stand out amongst any other engineer at your level and earn the status of your Sr. Director's "go to" person.
Your value is in being a versatile, competent "can do anything, anywhere and happy to do it" type of resource who can be thrown into the biggest messes and come out looking good.
To weight in with what most likely is an unpopular opinion here on HN - but you also have to consider your job satisfaction and stress factors before and after the potential move - sometimes it is best to shift orgs entirely and continue doing what you like doing rather than be forced to take on new challenges (that might or might not be intractable).
Not everyone is up for that (yes, it can be quite stressful). For those that can deal with it, it can be a lot of fun. I'm a good fixer, but not really into the chaos that fixers often deal with.
I know folks that are consultants, exactly so they won't be tied down to one task.
This really echoes the old “hackers, builders, maintainers” analogy and its wisdom about knowing which you are and being able to understand the other two aren’t the same as you are. Likely dips into the spectrums between as well.
There are two basic ways to orient a career: around a set of people that you are loyal to and work well with (and then let the specific assignments float to whatever needs doing), and around a type of work that you enjoy doing (and then let the people come and go, standing out by your competence in the ___domain).
I've found that the former often leads to more promotions and opportunities, because people make the decisions after all. But OP's expressed desires indicate more the latter. He gets satisfaction out of the work itself, understanding the technical ___domain and challenges. If that's your personality type and your inclination, you can make yourself very unhappy (not to mention underperforming) by pushing yourself into types of work that don't give you satisfaction, for the sake of preserving relationships. Sometimes it's worth it to forego the attractive opportunities favored by senior leadership so that you can continue to work on the things that you find enjoyable.
They already had a satisfying career, their complaint centers around how that was derailed and now they're working on something they have no interest in.
Agree with this. The big risk though is that you must continue to be seen the same way. Humans are highly prone to out-of-sight-out-of-mind, so you need to continually refresh their memory of you being that high performer. It's stupid and sucks, but unfortunately it's the way 95% of people are, and becoming a director doesn't change that underlying nature.
My advice:
1. Do try to report directly to the new director
2. Be honest and (mostly) open with them about your situation, and let them know that you are up for this challenge but that it won't be easy. Ask them for advice periodically with problems you run into (especially/mostly people problems unless they are very technical, which is rare at that level). Genuinely ask for advice though. Even if you don't take it, earnestly seek to understand what they would do and then use your own judgment about application.
3. Keep your eyes/ears open for new opportunities that might come up, but try to rate limit yourself because you don't want this to cause you to pull away from your new area or become a distraction. Also think about it as a "what could be next" not an opportunity to escape/eject early.
This is all true but even if you manage to become the "go to" person there is a potential trap. It's what I call the Promotion Ponzi. If you've been recognized as the "go to" guy you will be presented with new and bigger challenges at times. Make sure it always pays off in either money or (real) [1] responsibility, better both.
If it doesn't, run.
[1] Flashy titles and perks that cost the company next to nothing don't count. Best metric is the number of your reports.
"Sr. Director and given an opportunity to prove yourself"
from OP: "new team is known to be under-performing"
Uhh it sounds to me like the senior staff that the guy displaced OP with was the go-to guy and that OP has been given a shit sandwich. If OP wasn't specifically briefed by the sr director and TOLD "You're one of my go-to guys. I know this is a shit sandwich. Please help me fix it.", then this is basically constructive dismissal and they want you to just disappear.
On top of that, IME, go-to guys don't get sent to go fix stuff unless it's a clean sweep of the old "bad" team. They wouldn't send you in with known-low-performers, it's setting you up to fail.
Edit: Reading over other comments, I'm just in disbelief at how universally people are saying this is an opportunity. No, they cut off OP's support system, pushed them out of their top-spot, and off over to some team that leadership views as the trash pile. There's a difference between "this team is struggling and I'm bringing in support" and "damn, where do i put this guy. i'll just put them over here, with the rest of the fire."
err, "Promoted them out of their top-spot to one even higher."
If it were not for this detail I would agree with you. But if the boss is intending to constructively dismiss you, they don't give you a promotion as part of it.
Well even if you are right what is supposed to be done now? Other comments are telling to take it as opportunity and make most of this bad situation. Since OP does not want to leave what is your suggestion? Complain every day at work? Complain to HR? Do no accept new project and wait for next move from management?
Not every go-to guy is CEOs right hand who just goes in fires old team and put in new one in first month. Most of the time even go-to person has to make it work with existing teams.
If it were constructive dismissal then they wouldn't have promoted him.
This is "I heard you were a high performer but I don't know you directly, so I have high uncertainty. I have a team that needs guidance, but I don't care enough about that team to put the person I trust most in charge. I think you're probably good, so here's an opportunity to turn around a struggling team and impress me."
It is definitely a shit sandwich though. The senior director didn't care enough about this team to really try to help them, and didn't care enough about you to pump you up about the opportunity.
> Reading over other comments, I'm just in disbelief at how universally people are saying this is an opportunity.
I think it's called positive thinking. Or wishful thinking. Something like that.
In theory, everything is an opportunity. Even getting cancer is an opportunity to reflect on your priorities, call the people you love, make peace with your gods. It's just, some of us would prefer not to get this kind of opportunities.
I understand the sentiment around that managers should do a better job and many metrics based tools miss out on people performing necessary tasks that won't show up in the metrics. The people I have managed who fit those criteria were very obvious and it was known their code delivery was suffering because they were helping others. The good players always stood out.
The areas where I had wished we had comprehensive people metrics were frequently for remote employees on drastically different time zones where daily regular interaction was difficult or where there was some clear under-performance but the WHY was unclear.
It can be very tricky being a manager and to getting to the bottom of WHY someone isn't performing. Should a PIP be necessary, it's very important to identify specific behaviors that need improvement.
During 1:1s, under-performing employees will provide the most vague explanations, copious excuses, blame other factors. Even when I've cross checked with their peers, no one wanted to really give any clear answers as to why something was late, had abnormal amount of issues, or development was standing still altogether. People were clearly avoiding the questions.
Everyone here seems to assume direct reports are always honest, open and transparent. They are not, and especially when things are not going well.
Manager need a way to verify what they are hearing. Do the metrics support the claims, or is someone who's slacking just BSing you. It's not where you get your primary information on performance, it's what you use to verify your own suspicions or find supporting evidence.
For example, an employee who has a history of not testing their code and has in their development plan to improve on that. During 1:1s, the question comes up and invariably, every time I've been positively assured they are making great progress and everything is being tested.
I now have 3 options:
1. perform my own review of their code to verify their claim
2. get a high level metric that testing has improved
3. trust what they are saying, move on and throw the dice that everything will be fine
Option 1 is obviously the best but very micro-managerial and will clearly demonstrate I don't trust their word, further demotivating the individual
Option 2 would be a good place to start unless employee gives me further reason to go with option 1
If the governing part at the time of the Nazi trials actually held each and every person involved accountable, would they win the next election?
If a company holds their employees to the actual standards laid out by their policies or guidelines, what would attrition look like? Would they immediately be short staffed critial roles? Would they loose a key employee at a very inconventient time?
These are the real reasons preventing us from holding people accountable.
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