Is Your Software Valueless?

Software development ignores human values. As a society, we rely on software systems that neither align with nor respect our core values, such as transparency, gender diversity, social justice, and personal integrity. The past 50 years of software engineering have focused on functionality, cost, safety, availability, and security. But what about broader human values (Figure 1) such as compassion, social responsibility, and justice? The way we design software fundamentally influences society, yet human values-which we would all claim to care about-have been a side concern in software engineering. (See "Where Are the Values in Software?")