Can you have it all?

The idea of having it all has always fascinated me. From early on in High School, I wanted to be good at everything. I wanted to be successful at soccer, while at the same time doing well in school. For the most part I was successful, I got the third most shut outs in the state as a goalkeeper, while getting first in regional engineering team competitions with my fellow AP Physics students. But I was never quite the best in either world. Most of my academic peers doubled up on the number of AP classes I took, and many of my athletic peers lettered in multiple sports and got more playing time earlier on in high school. By my definition, in high school, having it all was just that, sports and books. But the drive to do it all left me in a limbo; I was too nerd for the jocks, and too jock for the nerds.

This formed a large basis of the reason I wanted to come to Notre Dame. I saw it as a place where smart people who loved sport and competition came. The students here would have the same priorities as me, I wouldn’t be stuck in that middle ground. As I got to Notre Dame things changed. I found it harder and harder to balance everything. Classes took up most of my priority, especially thinking about how much each second at college costs. I then joined frisbee and other clubs. So I had my sports and my academic: check and check. But now I had another dimension to consider: social life. The amount of friend and socializing opportunities I found at Notre Dame far exceeded anything I had in High School. Now my idea of having it all included having friends and being social, but now it got increasingly more difficult. Looking back, I would say that I was somewhat successful, much like High School. I have lots of great friends; I can play frisbee (somewhat); I am satisfied with my GPA (crazy I know). Now I will never claim that I am the meter stick by which the ability to have it all should be measure, but based on my experience I do not believe it is possible to have it all, yet I do believe it is possible to be fulfilled.

Let me explain. There are many social situations in which I feel awkward or do not know everyone, and I was unable to make A team frisbee after 4 years. In addition, my GPA has fallen consistently each semester.  Yet at every decision I knew the sacrifices I was making. I wouldn’t go to a party so I could focus on a problem set. I would skip frisbee tournaments to be with my girlfriend. All my decisions became a trade-off, where I would sacrifice one part of my three-part goal for the other, and at the end of the day I wouldn’t be the best at anything. The adage “Jack of All Trades, Master of none” is around for a reason. As I’ve gone through college I’ve come to terms with reality, I wont be the best at everything. Maybe there is someone who would be able to do all those things, and achieve the goals I reached for, but as I look forward to the real world I stand firm in my belief that it is not possible to have it all.

Outside of school, having it all refers to being at the top level of whatever vocations you want. Which is fine if you only want one, but to be at the top level at any vocation would mean to dedicate the majority of your life to it, because the people at the top do. The people who have pushed the vocation to its very best in the real world are the ones who are singularly focused. The vocation is their goal and they will go out and get it, whether that be career, hobby, or family care. To truly have it all would require a type of nonchalant mastery of vocations that are truly difficult. In Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article in the Atlantic, Why Women Still Can’t have It All, she tries to reign in the idea in feminism that woman can have a perfect career, be the best mother, and still have time to be presentable and sociable. This idea is something she thinks is harmful to tell women to aspire to, because for most people it is not realistic. She argues there is no shame in taking time off work to be with family more, because like everything in life it is a trade off. This is an argument that I believe really translates to all people, not just career oriented females. We have different interests and social commitments outside of work that will be unfulfilled if we do not sacrifice our career potential.

What struck me from the New York Times article about Amazon’s work culture, was that the ones who seem to thrive were the ones who made Amazon, and their career there, the single and only vocation in their life, or at least the only one they spent considerable time on. The article is full of stories of people leaving because they wanted to be with family more. One independent blogger talks about her experience getting her job duties taken while she was away on maternity and then cancer care leave. People who have dual devotions at Amazon will work and have a family life, but, like me in High school and College, not be the master at both. As a result, they cannot quite cut it in an environment that expects the very best work. This strategy creates a culture that Amazon may want, but it is unlikely many well rounded people will be engineers there forever.

However, my outlook is not so bleak. I believe it is possible to be fulfilled going for it all, so long as you set reasonable goals for yourself, and put yourself in the position to accomplish them. For me, I feel fulfilled; I feel as if I am still able to accomplish the notion of having it all in a more realistic sense. For example, while I know I am not the best frisbee player, I am an excellent student. I have been able to accomplish goals in both categories at different points, and while I am not at the top for both, I am high enough in each that I feel fulfilled. I think this practice is the best way to have it all: be realistic, and understand you will not have mastery of all. This strategy only works if you put yourself in a situation to accomplish it.

This brings me to the interesting example of my past and future manager. Although I worked under him for the entire summer, we only saw each other in person a total of about 2 times. This is because he works from home in Winthrop WA. When I asked him about it he said that he is the type of guy who would never leave the office and never spend quality time with his family. So to enable himself, he moved away from any company office, and works at a home office. Our company allows him to do this, and empowers him through robust meeting IT. There are so many ways to communicate with him during the day that it has no effect on his ability as a manager. This is the exact type of scheduling flexibility Slaughter says would help her maximize her potential to get it all. Tech companies in this sense, I believe, are uniquely qualified to provide this flexibility for their employees, and many do! Google offers unlimited sick days, and Netflix may be providing up to 1 year maternity leave. The idea that a complete and balanced employee provides the best work is widely accepted among tech companies. While ethically I cannot say whether they should provide these things, I believe it is consistent with their philosophy, and can provide all the flexibility their employees need to in order to achieve their personal ‘having it all’ goals.

While I hope that I will have a great balanced life out of college, I know like always I will be balancing multiple different goals, yet so long as I’m enable by a flexible employer, I will be able to accomplish many of my goals.

Project 1 Reflection

ethics-project-1

Our code of ethics focused a lot  on helping others and making sure that the public is informed on what we do. This is mostly drawn from the widening gap of monetary and information wealth between the public and the tech industry. Our code of ethics works towards closing that gap. Also, in the age of fake news and as tech increasingly changes how we perceive the world, we want to make sure that the code covered acts that may change how we interact and learn.

Our weakness in this code is that we don’t cover as much on the actual work, and more on the goal of work. While we did provide a rule for saying that all your work should be to the best of your ability, there are many different definitions of best. In addition, there are a lot of different dimensions to the quality of the code that you write.  So it will come down to how the coder interprets that rule. The way that this can be addressed is by delving into the nature of what is best for any given situation. This would require a much longer discussion that our code of ethics allowed.

At the end of the day, the code is only useful as far as people follow it. If people take it to heart then it would be a step in the right direction; however, people always can interpret things different and justify bad actions for good ends. For example, one goal we can all have in a code of ethics is “keep people safe”. The NSA uses that as the reason why they collect calls and texts. Others may say thats not justifiable. So the code of ethics is only part of it and always will be.

This exercise was good in putting to words our feelings toward industry trends and practices. Most of what we wrote was inspired by something done in industry or what might be done. For example, may people don’t know how Google or Facebook uses their data, and they may feel differently after they do. While that might be findable online, its always described in broad strokes. We thought that it should be more explicit. Ultimately, this exercise was good for us to put to words out thoughts and thus more formally make decisions in the future, based on stated principals.

Falling up

I somewhat negotiated my contract; however, it was not in the way that I ever expected. I started the job search process in August. I was in the interview process for quite a while, and it took until November 2nd until I got my first job offer. During this time I was experiencing many of the recession generation hallmarks: willingness to take anything, belief that there may not be that many jobs available, and not understanding my value. I grew increasingly anxious and frazzled. So this is the frame of mind in which I got my first job offer.

Throughout the fall I was waiting to hear back from the company that I interned with. Lets call this company A. When I finally got a job offer from, lets call them, company B, I immediately told company A, in hopes that this would hurry up their process, so I could get an answer once and for all.

Going into this process I had no intention of negotiating. There is this idea that our industry is overpaid and pampered, and that idea was (and still is somewhat) stopping me from wanting to ask for anything more. I didn’t want to be greedy. Whatever I got, I got. And if I was lucky enough to get more than one offer, I would decide from there.

What happened was a slightly different. After I told Company A about my offer, they said that they wanted to give me an offer but it may take them two weeks or more. Which left me in a predicament, I really wanted to work for company A, but B had given me an offer, which only lasted, you guessed it, two weeks. So it came down to whether I would just go ahead and accept with company B, or wait for company A. I talked to company B, got to know them more; after all, I had just spent all summer with Company A and had grown to really like everyone on my team. Thinking that one in the hand was worth two in the bush, I was preparing to accept the job with Company B when they called me up. They wanted to negotiate a way that I wouldn’t even wait for Company A, and sign immediately. This is where my utter lack of negotiating knowhow and market knowledge really showed. They asked what numbers, other than salary, they could improve, to make me sign. I gave them numbers that I believed were high, in hopes that it would delay long enough so I could see what Company A had to say, but what I actually did was low ball it. Company B came back with a very large set of golden handcuffs to accompany what I already thought was a great job offer, and I told them that I would work for them and would sign when the paperwork came through, and I informed Company A of such. Through this time, as excited as I was, I felt bad that I would not be working at company A, but I didn’t want to wait for them to come around. The next morning, before the papers from Company B were finalized, I received a call from Company A, asking what it would take to get me to sign with them. I said I would need an official offer that day and told them the details on my offer from Company B. On the last hour of the business day, Company A came through with an offer with large golden handcuffs, and now I was in a pickle. The company I told I’d go to, a great company, vs. the company I really loved with an offer than was amazing. Eventually I went with company A, but feel guilty about what happened.

I didn’t really understand what had happened until recently. I used my offer with Company B as a Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) with Company A to get accelerated candidacy, as well as a good pay increase. All of this somewhat not on purpose, and all driven by my underlying desire to work at Company A. As far as perks, I was able to get a higher starting job position, giving me access to higher end-of-the-year bonuses. I was able to work in the location that I wanted, and I also am salaried, which is not typical for a first year technical position at Company A. All acquired on accident.

After all this, I still don’t feel good about the negotiations. I don’t feel like the process is conducive to a good working relationship right off the bat. It feels like a weird artificial conversation where you are trying to milk as much money or value out of the other party. While I do think ultimately it is ethical to ask for more, because at the end of the day it is an agreement between two free acting parties, I hate the social and economic maneuvering required. I landed my dream job, but have never been able to really be happy about it because of the way it happened. I rescinded my Company B commitment, and I felt like I had just strung them along for two weeks. I felt like I had betrayed all the personal contacts that I had made at the company, because I wanted to work at Company A for slightly more money. At the beginning of the process I had told myself that I would act with integrity, and by the end I don’t know if I had. It had reduced social interaction to economic interaction, which may be the very essence of capitalism, which is something I supposedly support.

At the end of the day I believe it is ethical to ask for more and ask to change your contract, but it should be done with a plan and purpose that is clear. No shadiness, no hidden agenda. If that means I lose some leverage in the process, so be it. 

Beauty and the Best: Beloved tech and the Bemoaned robot takeover

In my previous post I talked about how technology was a main driving force is in social change throughout history. It also can be seen as a main creator of income inequality. Those who own the technology make money, and technology continues to improve to the point where it can take more and more jobs. Things as basic and ubiquitous as driving may soon become technology’s job, and in the past year speech recognition has gotten to be as good as a humans for many functions. As the tech industry industry continues to be one of the causes of income inequality, I believe it is prudent that they help mitigate the effects through a combination of Universal Basic Income principals, investment, and increased educational involvement.

While Silicon Valley works toward a future where no one has to work, the present reality is that tech removes some jobs without a system or investment in place to create jobs for those displaced. The VC firm Y Combinator has started to test Universal Basic Income as a solution, which I believe is a good start. Much of the tech industry’s profit comes from everyday citizens, people whose jobs are being phased out. Facebook makes its money placing ads in the faces of its users for products. If many Facebook users lose their job to tech, they will not be able to buy anything shown and will not click the links, which is what Facebook really wants. An even more stark example of tech needing people who may lose their jobs, is Uber. Uber uses drivers to make profits that they then pump into self driving car research, to replace drivers. Uber drivers are working themselves out of a job, but the economic incentive is such that they wont stop. Essentially, Uber has them trapped. It is unethical of any company to actively work towards solutions that will put their customers or employees in a tough spot, without coming up with and working towards solutions.

Silicon Valley and the industry in general is well suited to solving the problems it creates, because frankly, they have a whole ton of money. This money can be used for Y combinator type programs, and for reinvestment in jobs of the future. The universal basic income has the potential to help in the here and now. It doesn’t regulate how people spend and therefore the market will adapt so that they can afford a livable situation.  There are a number of other libertarian and capitalist based arguments that lay out how it will help people soon to be fighting a robot for their job. However this is not a permanent solution.

Venture Capitalist Paul Graham tweeted “Any industry that still has unions has potential energy that could be released by startups”. While this may be a broad statement, and perhaps not to be taken and disputed as a straw man, it typify’s his idolatry of start up culture. This viewpoint, while popular in the industry, does not play out the same in all industries. VC firms can confer value on startups, and those in the tech industry are arguable over-valued. This makes it far easier for these companies to get funding, where as other industries will not get the same type of investment. I believe VC firms, and the whole industry in general can do a better job of analyzing and see good ides outside of their area of expertise: tech. After all, it’s a lot easier to see the value in something when you can understand its potential.

They other piece to the puzzle, is the longest term solution, a compressive revitalization and reprioritization of education. Income lines have always divided most clearly across educational bounds, and in this country, good education is still a privileged entity. I have first  hand experience with this. I grew up with the best education in the state of Missouri, after all I lived in the same neighborhood as Sam Altman, now Y Combinator President. In addition, I received countless lessons from specialists on areas that I lacked in, and received enrichment education in the subjects I excelled in. I was put ahead at the age of 7, and I have been able to push that advantage through college and into landing myself a dream job. I worked incredibly hard, but the deck was in no way stacked against me. However; this is not the typical experience. Having a comprehensive support system is rare. Being a part of public school that is funded and specialized enough that it can push each student to their limit, is rare. It is honestly somewhat scary how little teachers get paid considering the power they wield to shape the future of this country.

While basic income is a good starting point, it does nothing to help the American dream. The market will adjust so that those with the income will be able to survive, but education will still remain out of reach and upward mobility will be stifled. Those who can afford good education will stay the educated class that holds the high paying jobs. The industry can do two things to help: educate all on coding, and use its influence to change our society. The first is largely already being done. Through initiatives like swift playground with Apple and the South Bend Coding school, coding is being introduced to more kids at a lower cost. The tech companies know that they best programming minds are out there, they just need a chance to try it. The other objective is less clear. The industry has the ability to cause huge social change, in fact, things such as fake news and job anxiety may have played a huge role in our last election. If companies can harness this power to help show how important good education and by extension good teachers are, then they will be working toward a good goal. Recently many tech leaders sat down with the new President. This audience is powerful and can be used to convince the president, and the whole government structure, that many of the issues regarding jobs can be solved through a smarter more financed approach to education.

While tech may not be able to solve the problems of the world, or save it completely. It can help. After all, whats the fun of this utopia they’re working towards if we can’t all make it.

Why study ethics in the context of Computer Science and Engineering?

Ethics are important to study in this context because technology can bring about huge social and political change, arguably, it’s the only thing that has. We define huge periods of history in relation to technology: Bronze Age, the introduction to metal working; the Dark Ages, no technological advancement; the Industrial revolution; the use of machines to create and produce massive amounts of goods. With each new iteration we need to find out the best ways to ethically use the technology. This is touched on by Sammuel C. Florman in his article “Engineering Ethics: The Conversation without End”. In this he talks about how as new technology emerges, public will is formed and things like the Pure Food and Drugs Act are enacted to help implement an ethical standard of how the people should be treated. The Pure Food and Drugs Act was in response to the heinous food packing practices used during the beginning of the industrial revolution. The companies were trying got maximize profits without considering public welfare.

With the dawn of computing and big data, we face similar challenges; however, this time is slightly different. In this instance we have an industry that, to much of the public, is a mystery. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” is Clarke’s third law, and the smoke and mirrors aren’t going to be going away soon. This is why the Association for Computing Machinery states that an ethical practice for people in the industry is to “Improve public understanding of computing and its consequences”. The public has a lot of fear related to the NSA and other countries hacking ours. Yet, we have major companies making tons of money by doing much of the same data collection for capitalistic purposes. The public needs to know exactly what information their trading and think about what they’re getting for it. Companies like Apple have come under fire for their stance of total user privacy when using their products. This came into public view with the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone. The company would not risk their entire user base for one criminal instance. Some of the public didn’t understand the full implications of what was bing asked but in the end, Apple may have set what is a huge precedents for companies to look at in the future.

Because the public is possibly lagging behind on understanding on the full extent of the industry, it lies heavily on the Computer Scientists to carefully examine what they are doing, and work frantically to get the public up to speed. This is such a dangerous area because there is money to be made along the fuzzy line where public opinion is being drawn. If we proceed without caution, we will have created an industry around practices that the public distrusts, which can cause a devastating backlash against any new technological innovation. The “magic” of sufficiently advanced technology will turn to “witchcraft”: the Silicon Valley Witch Trials will begin.

Introduction

I am Jack Klamer. I am a senior computer engineering major. From a young age I learned I love to be on the computer and decided to make a career out of it. For a long time I couldn’t decide if I wanted to be on the building side of them or the coding side. So I decided to get half the education in both and call it day.

Recently I have become very interested in the ethics of near future tech, and it’s ability to fundamentally change how we behave and interact as humans. What it means to be human and what we can do to preserve our humanity fascinates me. The shows Black Mirror and Westworld has spearheaded this interest, which is part of why I decided to spoof one of these for my blog name.

From this class I hope to get a better idea of the best practices for leading in a tech culture world where there may be profits with unethical development. In extension to this, I believe the most pressing ethical and moral issue facing computer scientists currently is the collection and monetizing of personal data. While may people understand to a certain level what is being collected not everyone knows the extend and the practices. People are freaking out about the NSA but not facebook, so we need to proceed cautiously as we collect more and more data.