Steering or Sleepwalking? The Strange Disappearance of Social Responsibility

Abstract

Many of you have read Moshe Vardi's recent column in the July 2022 Communications of the ACM entitled An Association of the Members, by the Members, for the Members. In the column Vardi discussed the need for a more transparent and accountable ACM and he used the example of the strange disappearance of social responsibility. In January 2018, Vardi's column "Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility,' argued that "ACM must be more active in addressing social responsibility issues raised by computing technology." In response to that column, he was asked "to convene a task force and formulate recommendations on how ACM can become a leading voice on social responsibility of computing professionals." I along with several others was invited to discuss this initiative with ACM leadership in February 2019 at ACM's headquarters and the short article I prepared for that meeting is included below Vardi presented the task force recommendations to the ACM Executive Committee in April 2019 and, in his words, the response from ACM leadership was a "thundering silence." I had been very optimistic about participating in the meeting on this critical topic and disappointed when it was shelved. In July 2019 all of the participants in the April meeting received the note that basically said not to worry: other groups were doing similar things in relation to out-of-control tech (rendering any work ACM would undertake as redundant) and that ACM itself was already involved in several activities that could be seen to fall under the heading of "social responsibility."