&gt; But bits can never yield singular values; like any tool, they can be used to promote harmony or discord, greed or selflessness. [...] Valid values require constant human construction, surveillance, critique, reflection, rebuilding, and a commons in which we all have a stake, over which we all care, or, to put it more sharply, we all should care.<p>One thing I don&#x27;t get from this argument is: does he consider programming a profession? It seems like his argument is that, replacing professionals with a strong code of ethics by automated systems might lead to some sort of societal decay. But that&#x27;s only true if the people building those systems are inherently less ethical or perhaps less aware of the issues than the original professionals. Otherwise, the systems can be build to bias towards a very high ethical standard, even as they crowdsource some of their functions (there might be an ethics vs economics trade-off for some systems, but if the trade-off is approached in an informed manner by ethical people, then a &#x27;reasonable&#x27; compromise should be often found).<p>Perhaps his argument for the eroding effect of technology is tied to his argument about the eroding effect of markets: because programmers are employed by large corporations which have strong incentives to increase profits[1] at the cost of much everything else they will eventually be led to bend any professional codes of ethics if market forces act against those. This could very well be true, but I am not sure that&#x27;s what the article says.<p>The article seems to imply than a doctor or a lawyer is likely a more moral person than a programmer or at least than the system the programmer can build. I am not sure I understand why it would be so.<p>[1] Long-term profits, being generous. But still.