"At issue, ultimately, is the ethical question of what makes software “good.” The qualities of good software include seamlessness, efficiency, speed, simplicity, and straightforward user-experience design. Failing to maximize these values may feel, for a software engineer, like driving a Ferrari below the speed limit—a violation of the spirit of the enterprise. But the seamlessness, efficiency, and power experienced by users don’t necessarily translate to positive social experiences; the short-term satisfactions offered by software can upstage its longer-term implications. One of the challenges of ethical software design is that, in some respects, it asks developers and designers to work against themselves and to counteract what makes software so useful in the first place."
At www.newyorker.com
