#engineering ethics

1. During a happy hour multiple coworkers and I had a conversation about ethical collaborations. That is, we didn't want our tech being used to pilot drones that kill ppl. I'd argue tracking people is also pretty unethical but I did not say this at the time bc I didn't want to appear against a contract we already had.

2. A conversation with my manager about the harms of misinformation spread by fake ai accounts that can generate believable (at least at a glance) photos and videos.

What's interesting to me is despite potential consequences the work is really fun. I love programming. I love massive parallelism. I even liked writing tests bc I got to do a lot of stats and graphs are fun. And for every bad thing we can do we can also do good things you know. Identifying a target to shoot isn't that different from identifying a fire to extinguish. Creating a fake news story isn't that different from filling in a medical chart from a conversation. I'm almost certain my work isn't being used for good but I'm sure it could be. I don't think math is evil. And I still like and do it. I'm in a class on ML rn and we do classifications using various algorithms on MATLAB. I'd argue that's less fun than managing GPU memory (I don't like MATLAB and do like CUDA C/C++) but it's still probably my favourite class.

Here are some notes our e-board put together after our watch-through of Arkangel on Black Mirror to help guide our group discussion. What are your thoughts on the ethics behind Arkangel?

-Sara won’t develop emotionally

--Won’t learn to grieve, and won't learn to healthfully cope with stressful moments

--Never learns how pain can affect people, so she can’t recognize when she’s hurting people

---This is mostly about emotional pain, but when she beats her mom up, that’s a physical representation of this

---Also, when she was trying drugs for the first time, trying to steal and open the supply Trick needed to sell could’ve gotten Trick in a lot of trouble from his suppliers/buyers 

I am in absolute horrified Awe. Like. I don’t know much about submarines, but I know rockets and we use carbon fiber for hobby rockets and. You can’t?? Make a pressurized vessel out of carbon fiber?? And expect it to survive cyclical loads?? Especially one experiencing temperatures as low as the waters by the Titanic!! Like the polymer matrix would DEFFO experience embrittlement and at MINIMUM crack but more likely would fail catastrophically!! Your threasbold for acceptable cracking would be MINISCULE at that pressure; you couldn’t afford brittle cracking almost at all!!

This article goes into some detail about the safety concerns with the material used and how they were literally brought up and ignored! like. This is the literal scenario they train us for ethics wise in college! Legit the definition! Of when you should put human life before the company!!

Idk it’s just. There’s so much wrong with the situation, but like. To not perform nondestructive testing on the hull?? To ignore visible defects on a supplied material??

In the bustling area of technology and innovation, where every day brings a discovery, the role of ethics in engineering cannot be overstated. At its core, engineering is about solving problems and making life easier and more efficient. However, as we race towards the future, the ethical implications of our decisions become increasingly significant. 

This is especially relevant for students and professionals associated with esteemed institutions like the Faculty of Engineering & Technology, which is the Datta Meghe College of Engineering, one of the best engineering colleges in Wardha, where the foundation of ethical engineering practices is laid.

The Pillars of Engineering Ethics

Several key principles form the foundation of engineering ethics:

1. Safety: Ensuring the safety of the public, the environment, and the workforce is paramount. This involves rigorous testing, transparent reporting, and constant vigilance against potential hazards.

2. Honesty: Engineers must be honest in their communications and reports. This includes acknowledging limitations, risks, and uncertainties associated with their work.

3. Fairness: This involves treating everyone with respect and without discrimination. It also means considering the impact of engineering projects on all stakeholders, including marginalized communities.

4. Privacy: With the rise of digital technology, respecting and protecting individuals' privacy has become a significant concern for engineers in all fields, from software development to civil engineering.

Real-world Applications of Engineering

Institutions like FEAT, the Datta Meghe College of Engineering, are recognized as one of the best engineering colleges in Wardha, are at the forefront of integrating ethical considerations into their curriculum. This ensures that graduates are not just technically proficient but also morally grounded. 

Let's explore how these ethical principles are applied in real-world scenarios:

Developing Sustainable Solutions: Engineers are increasingly tasked with creating solutions that are not only effective but also sustainable. This means considering the environmental impact and striving for solutions that promote conservation and reduce waste.

Ensuring Data Privacy and Security: In the digital age, engineers must design systems that protect users' privacy and secure their data against unauthorized access and breaches.

Ethical AI Development: As artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into our lives, ethical concerns around bias, transparency, and accountability become paramount. Engineers must work to ensure AI systems are fair and do not perpetuate existing inequalities.

Public Safety and Infrastructure: Civil engineers, in particular, directly impact public safety through the design and maintenance of infrastructure. Ethical considerations include ensuring structures are safe, resilient, and accessible to all.

Challenges in Modern Engineering Ethics

While the principles of engineering ethics are clear, applying them in the modern world comes with its own set of challenges:

Rapid Technological Advancement: The fast pace of technological innovation can make it difficult to fully assess the long-term impacts and ethical considerations of new developments.

Globalization: Working on projects that span different countries and cultures can introduce complex ethical dilemmas, requiring engineers to navigate varying legal and moral frameworks.

Interdisciplinary Work: Modern engineering projects often involve professionals from various fields, making maintaining cohesive ethical standards more challenging.

The Role of Education

Educational institutions like FEAT, the Datta Meghe College of Engineering, play a crucial role in preparing the next generation of engineers to face these challenges. By embedding ethical considerations into the engineering curriculum, students learn to integrate ethical thinking into all aspects of their work. 

This includes case studies, ethical dilemma discussions, and projects that simulate real-world scenarios, ensuring graduates are well-equipped to make ethical decisions professionally.

Conclusion

As we continue to push the boundaries of what's possible, the importance of ethics in engineering cannot be overstated. Every engineer is responsible for upholding these principles, ensuring that our advancements lead to a better, safer, and more equitable world. 

Engineering is making 27 pages of elaborate notes in hopes to study and remember everything.

Engineering is finding out a few days before the midterm that its actually open book.

Engineering is sighing aggressively and ranting to people about classes.

Like, ok. We’re going to talk about an ethical dilemma, we need to define the stakeholders, the people who would be affected who might have different and conflicting needs. But why are we including the people providing the funding as stakeholders?? They don’t have an ethical stake. They have an economic stake.

Sure, when we’re figuring out what decision is actually going to be made, the opinions of the people with the money are certainly going to have an impact. But if we’re talking ethics - what are the ethical implications of the decisions which could be made - the money invested has nothing to do with it. 

It’s absurd and upsetting that “these people want to make money doing this thing, but it’s going to hurt these other people” is considered an ethical dilemma. It’s not! It’s an ethical failure!  Hell, even “this thing needs to get done, and there are definitely better and worse ways to do it, but we don’t have enough resources or funding to do it in the ethically better way” isn’t an ethical dilemma. It’s a failure of resource distribution. But we don’t talk about it like that. We don’t talk about it like different choices could be made, at the systemic level, about what options are and are not possible.

To be more specific - let’s talk about oil pipelines. That’s an ethical shitshow. Building an oil pipeline will cause massive environmental harm, it will cause harm to indigenous communities, and it will be a violation of indigenous rights and indigenous sovereignty. It will bring money to oil investors. It may, for a while, keep the price of oil relatively low, and various people working oil-dependent jobs might stay employed a little longer - but those effects will last not more than at most a couple decades. The oil industry will die, one way or another, and soon. 

And again, to be really fucking clear about relative significance, it would be a violation of human rights protected under international law.  

So you really have to stop and consider: the government is calmly discussing - and actively working on - a project that is an act of war against the sovereign territory of an indigenous nation, purely because it will make more money for some very wealthy people, and perhaps act as a stop-gap against poverty for some other people for a little while. And that’s talked about like it’s an ethical dilemma.

The government will say all sorts of things justifying the funding of this project that all leverage that slim ethical consideration of protecting the livelihood of people living in regions where oil industry is the only source of jobs - but they’ll talk about it like the only alternative to the pipeline is just letting those regions fall into economic despair. As if they couldn’t just invest the same amount of money in providing infrastructure and getting other job options off the ground. They have the money! They are just choosing to spend it on a stupid fucking pipeline instead! And if it’s not enough money? What about all that fucking money the oil industry has lying around? If we’re talking ethics - if we’re really talking ethics - is it not ethical for the government to claim that money in corporate taxes and invest it into the wellbeing of the people?

We talk about “ethical dilemmas” as if they were economic decisions with ethical icing. And as often as not, those ethical considerations are just twisted up and used as bargaining chips, not considered as the foundation of decision-making in their own right.

From an engineering ethics standpoint - the sort of stuff we cover in class, that’s making me angry enough to write this post - we talk about ethical decisions as if we engineers have no real agency in the decision-making process. We assume that a project, in a specific form, with whatever ethical implications, either will happen or won’t happen. And that we can either chose to participate or not participate. The only alternative considered is the “do nothing” option.

So for pipelines, say, you’re working for an engineering firm that’s been offered a job to build a pipeline. If you reject the job, is that ethical? Some other firm will do it. Is it ethical to accept the job, and just do the best you can to build a pipeline that won’t leak? That’s bullshit. That’s complacency. 

No one in these conversation ever says: is it ethical to go to the camps of protesters and help them engineer barricades? Is it ethical to help them sabotage the construction equipment that is being used in an act of war against them? Is it ethical to destroy documents necessary to the project, should they pass through your hands? Is it ethical to leak construction documents to the protesters to plan sabotage?

Of course, we don’t talk about those things because they are illegal. You could lose your licence, your right to practice as an engineer.

But we do talk about going along with it, building the pipeline anyway - even though that is also illegal. After all, it might be a violation of international law, but you won’t lose your license for it.

Who enforces what laws? Who pays for them to be enforced - who pays for them to be ignored?

At what point do you draw the line, between ethics and the law?

But we don’t talk about that. We talk about being good little engineers who keep our heads down and only ask the sorts of ethical questions that won’t get you fired. You can be a whistleblower, maybe, but god forbid you take any kind of action. Leave that to the press, the government, the voters, all those other people who have clearly done such a good job of handling these issues so far.

The thing is, these projects need engineers. Sure, they don’t need you - there’s always someone else they could hire. But someone, some engineer, at some point has to know all the details of how the thing functions - and that also means knowing exactly what could go wrong. Whoever designs the route of the pipeline must know exactly what territory it passes through. Whoever designs the pipe itself, the materials, the bracing - knows exactly how badly it could fail, how much oil could be spilled. Even if you, as an engineer, are not asked for your ethical opinion by the people who are hiring you to design something for them - you know. If you’re paying any attention at all - if you’re paying even half as much attention as required to do your job - you know what the worst-case scenario is.

We had a guest lecturer one time talking about pavement design for roads (thrilling, I know) who went on this whole rant about studded tires - like people have in snow country, for grip on icy roads

And for a minute it seemed like he might be about to say they don’t actually work, or they’re dangerous or something - but it quickly became clear that he hated them because of how much damage they do to the pavement.

They wear away at it, you see, and make ruts, and then the roadbed has to be resurfaced more often.

“Chains are bad too,” he said, “but at least they’re not AS bad.”

And I just. I can’t get over that. Those terrible snow chains and studded tires - y’know, safety devices that are designed so people DON’T FUCKING DIE on icy roads - are just so bad for the PAVEMENT. The fucking pavement. Does it matter???? Do I care??