As engineers, we must consider the ethical implications of our work

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/05/engineering-moral-effects-technology-impact

by jvoorhis • 13 years ago

202 194 13 years ago

rjknight• 13 years ago

I think this is a good point, but it runs into some particular problems when dealing with software, in particular open source software, where there is no direct relationship between the person creating the software and the person using it - in fact, it's not automatically true that the person creating the software knows anything at all about who is using it.

lowmagnet• 13 years ago

We can only make certain that our individual contributions are ethical, correct, and secure. It helps a little to assuage those particular fears, I think.

TheCapn• 13 years ago

Its written into our Code of Ethics in Canada that all Engineers are to put the public good above that of our own personal gain or that of our employer. Our tasks are to be selfless and to the betterment of all mankind but like any difficult subject there's a fog of gray areas and open interpretation to be had. Heck we wear the Iron Ring as a reminder of this sworn duty.

However, the role we claim to take on, true "selflessness" is near impossible to reach in practice. Before we are engineers we are people and have basic needs. Without whipping out my Googlefu I would wager there are certainly more cases of people blowing the whistle and seeing their way of life crumble around them than there are who get protected by law. There is massive resistance to change from those who call the shots and if you're to go against the grain you're looking to sacrifice your career, life, health, etc.. The engineer says "you need to say something or people will die" but the person says "your family needs to eat".

In the end I think engineers weigh decisions of ethics in the moment. A protocol, security appliance or other technology development isn't bad, its how its governed to say when its harmful and to or how it gets implemented into the bigger picture that starts to cross ethical boundaries. Any engineer sees the good in his/her work and is perhaps aware of its dark side but elects to overlook it for the good it will provide.

Asking engineers to hold themselves to this standard is good. A self-governed society with regulation helps everyone for the better but I feel anyone tasked with decisions that effect the public at large should be held to this accountability. I think I'm preaching to the choir at this point though.

canistr• 13 years ago

While it's true as engineers we must be ethical, try to ask the question of ethics with regards to what we do, and do stand by those ethics in the face of adversity, the reality is that we are but only engineers. Without a historical grasp for lessons learned in the past and training on how specifically to handle ethical situations (and I can attest that the Intro to Engineering Ethics are poor lessons for practical purposes), there truly needs to be people versed in such code of ethics to really do the work (hence the ACLU, EFF, various Privacy Commissioners of Ontario/Canada, etc.) as well as within the organizations doing the work (lawyers, policy analysts, etc.)

onebaddude• 13 years ago

"The engineer says "you need to say something or people will die" but the person says "your family needs to eat"."

This is the eternal moral conundrum. And the latter justification has led to some historically horrendous events.

mikestew• 13 years ago

As far as I can tell, it's not a conundrum that many software engineers will face. As for the U. S., the worst that's going to happen is that one goes and finds another job. In the worst imaginable case (that is very unlikely to happen), one begs at an exit ramp off the interstate highway. Oh, you'll sacrifice some pride, but you won't starve.

The most likely case is that the person doesn't say "your family needs to eat", but rather "I'll have to explain why we gave up the leased BMW and the kids aren't getting iPads for Christmas" (or pick your own lifestyle impact that doesn't involve going without food).

Maybe India is different, Europe I'm inclined to believe not so different. Few of us will have to explain to our children that they are hungry because Mommy didn't take that job at Lockheed Martin.

mseebach5• 13 years ago

Its written into our Code of Ethics in Canada that all Engineers are to put the public good above that of our own personal gain or that of our employer.

That's great. Which part of "protecting the motherland against terrorists" would not satisfy that code? I'd bet that the vast majority of the (necessarily quite competent) engineers that built the NSA infrastructure believed (and possibly still do) that that is what they're doing. It would surprise me severely if a majority of them was making a trade-off between "family eats" and "the right thing to do".

We're not talking about people that plausibly do not have alternative employment available. These are highly competent engineers and they could go work for any number of companies with decidedly less evil businesses if they felt their ethics were being compromised.

gaius• 13 years ago

Sorry accidental down vote on phone.

michaelochurch7• 13 years ago

I blew whistles twice in about a 6-month period. First was at a good company (won't name it, you know what it is) when I had a really bad manager. (I worked with a recruiter once who knew the name and said, "I get his people all the time, he's the worst manager at <company>.") Four months later I worked at a startup where top management tried to get me to commit felony perjury. Refusing to it so cost me my job, and the CEO launched a months-long personal campaign to ruin my reputation. If he weren't basically considered a joke by everyone who actually knows him, and if I weren't above-average in terms of being articulate, I'd have been fucked.

If I were of more moderate talents (meaning IQ 130-140, so I'm talking about a level that's still quite strong) or older (meaning 45) or had kids, I would have been in a lot more danger. The percentage of people who can blow whistles and survive it is small-- maybe 1 or 2 percent. There are a lot of shady databases that some companies are now doing to make it easier to share information in appropriate ways. It started with banks and tech companies to share compensation information (because in finance, your bonus is your performance review, so people inflated their numbers) but it's also been used for blacklisting attempts.

What really surprised me out of the whistleblowing experience was not the official response. That generally came out to what I expected. But you learn quickly that most people are morally weak and will turn on you, either because they don't like your "tone" or because "you should have used proper channels". What those people don't see is that whistleblowing almost always happens when "proper channels" fail. (See: the infamous, but misunderstood "hot coffee lawsuit", wherein the plaintiff originally just asked not for a million-dollar award-- which she never received, by the way-- but to have her medical bills paid-- a reasonable request given all the circumstances.) Most people are morally vacant "slutty cheerleaders" (please see this high-school metaphor as gender neutral; sluts and cheerleaders can both be male) who ultimately side with power unless power really fucks up.

What's the best thing society can do for whistleblowers? Personally, I think blacklisting should be a jail offense with the same penalty as attempted murder, because that's what it is.

MichaelGG8• 13 years ago

Interesting comment, but comparing blacklisting to attempting murder is ridiculous. Were you just being hyperbolic for effect?

dreamdu5t• 13 years ago

Americans think working for the NSA is ethical. Everyone I've met who has worked for the NSA or their contractors believes in the surveillance state.

Even the Guardian is not clear on this. Does the Guardian support the existence of the NSA, or not? You can't have your cake and eat it too.

pingswept2• 13 years ago

Some Americans think working for the NSA is ethical. I'm an American engineer, and I would not work for them, given their recent history.

I would be surprised if you found an American working for the NSA who didn't do so willingly-- people in that position can easily find other jobs, so they do.

tobiasu• 13 years ago

It's pretty easy to divide the world in black and white, but rarely helps anyone.

wavefunction• 13 years ago

You don't think you're biasing your analysis by concluding that every NSA related person believes in what they're doing? People that don't believe in what the NSA is doing wouldn't work there. Its going to be very hard to find someone who doesn't believe, since adults that change their long-held opinions are pretty rare.

To name one that did change his opinion of his "mission," Edward Snowden.

xradionut• 13 years ago

People think working for Goldman Sachs is ethical. People participating in the Summer Olympics think Russia is ethical. People buying Nikes and Fuji water think they are ethical.

Where do you stop?

rm999• 13 years ago

Engineers have, in many ways, built the modern world and helped improve the lives of many. Of this, we are rightfully proud. What's more, only a very small minority of engineers is in the business of making weapons or privacy-invading algorithms.

Morality is relative - by defining what is and isn't moral the article loses the opportunity to make a bigger, more inclusive point. While some people may think spying is wrong, others, like the Economist (http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21588861-america-will-...) have argued that it's not a bad thing. Similarly, building weapons isn't bad (per se); as the ancient adage goes: "if you want peace, prepare for war".

My point isn't to start an off-topic debate, it's to point out that morality is complex and subjective, and it's up to the individual to make their own decisions. Personally I would never work for the NSA or a defense contractor, but I understand why some people do. I think building a strong moral code is very important, and it's a bad idea to let other people do it for you.

pingswept2• 13 years ago

I don't know that I would agree with you that morality is relative, but I strongly agree with your larger point that you shouldn't let other people build your moral code for you. I also would never[1] work for the NSA or a defense contractor.

[1] By "never," I mean that I cannot imagine a realistic scenario in which I would accept such a job. I can imagine an unrealistic scenario in which the head of the NSA has kidnapped my child and is holding New York hostage with a ticking time bomb in which I would accept such a job gladly.

Ensorceled• 13 years ago

That is the best "HN Disclaimer", I have seen on a comment.

blister• 13 years ago

As someone who has done both of those things, the pay is great and the work is interesting. The only thing that sucks is the work environment. SCIFs are a terrible place to be a programmer.

jt2190• 13 years ago

  > My point isn't to start an off-topic debate, it's to 
  > point out that morality is complex and subjective, 
  > and it's up to the individual to make their own decisions.

Did the author make the opposite point? (I'm having trouble seeing it if he did. For example, the sentence that follows what you quoted exemplifies the author's efforts to not define morality in strict terms: "However, we [engineers] are part and parcel of industrial modernity with all its might, advantages and flaws, and we therefore contribute to human suffering as well as flourishing.")

rayiner4• 13 years ago

Personally I would never work for the NSA or a defense contractor, but I understand why some people do.

I used to work for a defense contractor and would do so again happily. I think there's just as much of an ethical consideration in play when you're building robots to put people out of work faster than our safety net can keep up with as when you're building robots to fight our wars so American soldiers won't have to.

crpatino2• 13 years ago

Does anyone else have a feeling that the idea that it is unacceptable to suffer soldier casualties during war is ultimately emasculating for the US army?

This is not the first time this happens in history, either. The golden age fearsome Roman Legions used the Glatius, a short, broad, and extremely lethal sword as their main service weapon. By the 3rd century A.D. the population had grown so unmanly that some young men would chop off one of their fingers just to avoid being recruited, and the Legions were increasingly composed of long conquered barbarians, who were pitted against new waves of far away barbarians.

These new Legions brought longer, thinner swords into battle. Those were great from a personal safety point of view (you could hold your foe at a longer range), but were harder to use in closed formation and ultimately less effective in the offensive. We all know how that ended for them....

icebraining• 13 years ago

I'd say the ethical considerations are much greater in the latter case, since building drones is also putting people out of work (it's well known that poor people enlist in greater numbers than other social classes).

kabdib2• 13 years ago

I've had Richard Stallman personally lambaste me for unethical behavior, namely by not quitting my job at Apple because he disagreed with Apple's behavior.

While I agree that ethics are important, there are people who will use ethics-like arguments to manipulate you.

I make shooter video games. Is that a bad thing? According to some people I'm evil. I've written software that people used to write software that people used to kill people, is that okay?

Saying, "We gotta follow ethics" is great stuff, but I'm unwilling to be used.

icambron2• 13 years ago

I'm sympathetic to the broad point your making, but your example isn't very good:

I make shooter video games. Is that a bad thing? According to some people I'm evil.

If you thought that shooter video games were bad and you built them anyway, that would be poor ethics. That other people think shooter video games are evil isn't what matters; it's what you think that matters.

mseebach5• 13 years ago

The essence is that the people who built the unethical NSA tools most likely did not consider the things they did unethical, so calling on people to be ethical as a response to the NSA leaks only work if "ethical" is understood as "you can't build surveillance tools for the NSA even if you personally believe it's ethical".

MPetitt• 13 years ago

So what if these NSA engineers really thought they were helping people and doing good? What if they personally decided they were willing to deal with the certain privacy sacrifices they were making because from what they knew, working in very secret high level intelligence(seeing and knowing a lot more than we do), the threat to peoples lives and safety were worth what they are doing. Then in that case this whole article would be considered bunk. Ethics like morals are relative.

dllthomas3• 13 years ago

"it's what you think that matters."

Along with a question of whether you've done an appropriate amount of reflection on the matter.

MichaelGG8• 13 years ago

it's what you think that matters.

Is that actually useful in any way? It sounds like self-help "be true to yourself" kinda nonsense.

Ethics are rather pointless without some general priors to agree on. It's hard to reach full consensus even on basic human rights. Even if everyone did, they diverge rather quickly. The whole topic is logically pointless.

cliffbean• 13 years ago

You don't see yourself as evil, so no one should call you evil?

nickff2• 13 years ago

I think the point which the parent is trying to get at is that he should not be expected to follow rules whose premise he disagrees with. People can call you whatever they like, but the question is whether you should allow their moral or ethical norms to affect your actions.

enraged_camel2• 13 years ago

I think the idea is that "evil" is a relative term and it relates to morals, not ethics.

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals

001sky• 13 years ago

You don't see yourself as evil, so no one should call you evil?

Hitler had a lot of self confidence

bredman• 13 years ago

When doctors or nurses use their knowledge of anatomy in order to torture or conduct medical experiments on helpless subjects, we are rightly outraged. Why doesn't society seem to apply the same standards to engineers?

I think the difference we draw between the two is that an engineer builds things that can be used for many purposes (defense or offense for example) and we as a society generally agree with one of those two uses. When a doctor abuses their knowledge to cause pain they are the ones making a choice we disagree with.

Anyways, yes engineers should think about how their work can (and will) be used but I think it's disingenuous to compare them to patient torturing doctors.

laveur• 13 years ago

Am I the only one that is disappointed that there was no image from the Movie "Real Genius"?

icegreentea• 13 years ago

Your morality and ethics are your own. How you choose to align your beliefs with those around you is up to you. Just be aware the non-alignment will cause friction and conflict, and that that choice was yours.

But more seriously, regardless of your ethical views, we should be more mindful of the effects of our work cause it's often pretty clear that those effects aren't actually thought through. Understand that what negative impacts may have from your frame of reference, and figure out if they are acceptable for you before hand.

Case in point, say you can develop a system that will 100% secure the communication and organization of resistance groups in countries with oppressive government. There is no guarantee that the end result of that is something you want. Maybe it'll lead to genocide of the once ruling tribe once the government is overthrown. Maybe it gets replaced with something worse. And certainly, "bad people" at home will get their hands on it. Can you deal with that? Gotta make up your mind. No action takes place in a vacuum.

enraged_camel2• 13 years ago

>Your morality and ethics are your own.

No. Only morality is defined by the individual. Ethics are defined by groups and societies.

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals

dragonwriter2• 13 years ago

The distinction you (and the site you link) propose between "morals" and "ethics" is far from universally used, even in the domain of philosophy which concerns morals/ethics.

Notably, its not even consistent with the definitions given in the "references" provided on the linked site, which seems to adopt the principle that if you assert something boldly and provided references to "support" it, it doesn't matter if the references actually support it, people will just assume your description is authoritative because you gave references.

nickff2• 13 years ago

Ethics are not necessarily your own, and can take the form of an enforceable code in a number of professional organizations.

Some sources define ethics as being a set of normative values common to a group of people, and morals as being subset of the individual's normative values.

leeoniya• 13 years ago

it would be a strange feeling indeed working on surveillance code that could (and almost inevitability will) be deployed against me.

angersock• 13 years ago

Lucky for you just today Grouper has decided to give you that opportunity:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6855114

pavanky• 13 years ago

The problem with statements like this is, whose ethics should one be held against ?

The ethics of the majority population are usually more misses than hits. Ethics of the peers will perhaps be better but will still suffer from different kinds of prejudices (for ex. discovery above all else among scientists).

This leaves the ethics of self which most people should and will follow. The only thing anyone else can do is make sure people are held accountable for the consequences of their actions.

Theodores• 13 years ago

Quite a few of my university friends went off to join the military-industrial-circus and I saw their rationale for doing so change over time. Initially something like having learned the ADA programming language coupled with a poor degree result meant that 'defence' was the only option open to them unless they wanted to stack shelves at a supermarket. Then the family came along, with the mortgage and the responsibilities of being a mature adult. The rationale shifted, working for the military machine was now just a means to an end, for bread on the table, where there are bills to pay. This is what happens.

gjm11• 13 years ago

I don't understand what change you're describing.

Initially they went to work in the defence industry because it was their only option unless they wanted to stack shelves.

Later they continued working in the defence industry because it was their only option to put bread on the table and pay the mortgage.

Those both look to me like "I'm doing it because it's the only option I have that uses my skills to do something that pays decently".

What I'd find more interesting would be if people tended to shift (1) from "I do this because I think it is a noble way to serve my country" to "I do this even though it's horrible because the alternative is poverty" or (2) from "I do this because the alternative is poverty" to "actually it turns out that this is a noble way to serve my country".

whiddershins• 13 years ago

I could write music for commercials, it pays very well. I choose not to on ethical grounds. If it were my only choice to feed my family, I would change my mind. But it is hard to truly terrorize people with music, although I've been accused of it. ;)

Should personal ethics factor in to what we do as work? Absolutely. More than most ethical decisions, what we do as work can profoundly affect the world around us. Are these distinctions easy and clear? No. Is that a reason to stop thinking about it and just do whatever is most fun and pays best? In my opinion, no. This is one of the greatest questions we all face, how our daily actions affect others, and I no longer expect quick and definitive answers.

But it means a lot just to keep looking.

anonee• 13 years ago

Posting this anonymously for obvious reasons.

I've worked in the defence sector with embedded systems.

Some engineers do work ethically within unethical companies, particularly defence companies. There are lots of people working out how best to fuck up the delivery and implementation of the latest and greatest killing machines and surveillance technologies. Skilled engineers can also skillfully make total lemons too. Some high profile projects that failed were pretty much sabotaged by the staff on ethical grounds.

This is not discussed outside of the organisations, nor is it discussed inside the organisations in detail but if something is designed to wage war, it might not get there in the end.

jpk• 13 years ago

This reminds me of Mike Monteiro's talk, "How Designers Destroyed the World". http://vimeo.com/68470326

He was talking about web/industrial/etc designers, and this is talking about engineers. It doesn't matter what field you're in, the moral of the story is: Be cognizant of how your work affects the world, and be prepared to say "no" to requirements that will likely affect others negatively.

ctdonath• 13 years ago

For my B.S.C.E., we were required to take an ethics course. By the end, everyone was convinced being ethical was a fast track to job loss & blacklisting.

RodericDay• 13 years ago

same. I still don't know whether the university was deliberately trying to teach the kids to be obedient by shoving Boisjoly down their throats, or whether it was merely a side-effect.

theg2• 13 years ago

Your profession doesn't define your ethics, you should define your own. Anyone telling you that you have to be ethical because of your profession is trying to coerce you to their way of thinking.

plinkplonk10• 13 years ago

This might not be the norm here, but give me enough money and challenging work, great working conditions, and I'll work for any legal company or organization, though some organizations would have to put out a great deal of money vs others!

Given that like most decent programmers here, I can work more or less anywhere, given equal amounts of money etc, I'd probably go work for Google than the CIA.

But if the job choice is between fiddling with javascript on some ancient offshored CRUD codebase(say, been there done that), vs building robots for the American Army, or the Indian army - [I live in India]), no contest at all.

In other words I won't work for the mafia or child pornographers or anything illegal, but the CIA/NSA/whoever? In a heartbeat.

Drone targeting software? sure thing. A drone is just the weapon of the day and not any more illegal than say a smoothbore musket in its day. Should all the engineers/metallurgists have stuck to making trinkets for the nobility vs cannons for their army? You are working for the same people in any case.

Every algorithm known to man has both good and bad uses. Not developing algorithms because they might be harmful is insane.

On a less hyperbolic plane, I like Richard Stallman but would easily work for Apple or Goldman Sachs (for e.g, given enough money and good work and good working conditions and coworkers).

The software you'd write for SpaceX isn't that far different from the software you'd write to control an ICBM. Salarymen who think they can control what the software they write will be used for by their employers are just deluding themselves. Do you think the people who built Watson have any control on what IBM will do with the tech? And this is a company that used computing to help the Nazis. Should the engineers at IBM not have worked on computers?

Work is just work, a means to exchange your talents for money. Keep it legal, do good work. Go home and play with the kids.

The way to stop the NSA from doing distasteful things is, in my opinion, to work to elect people/hold your legislators feet to the fire, and get good legislation passed not refuse to research/deploy cryptographic/cryptanalysis algorithms.

I just wanted a little balance to this discussion. Not everyone buys into the political correctnesses of the day. Sorry for the rant, but the article is nonsensical, trying to guilt trip algorithm developers.

yes so "People should think about it. But I'm just an engineer, basically."

zzzeek2• 13 years ago

when you say "keep it legal" it sounds like you only mean, "so I don't get arrested". That is, you would not work on something very ethical, but illegal (like some system of assisting in the production of medical marijuana in a state where it's illegal) but you would work on something unethical but legal (NSA spying).

So really, saying anything legal is not saying much - essentially ethics don't come into question.

I know for a fact that I'm very uncomfortable working on something that I find to be obviously unethical. Though NSA stuff, I'd not work on that just because I'd hate keeping everything I do a secret.

plinkplonk10• 13 years ago

Sure, as with all things human, there is the occasional gray area where there are no good answers, but yes I probably wouldn't work in a criminal enterprise in a democratic nation, whether it is about medical marijuana or not.

The point is, I'll work on things as per my ethics, not some random person's ethics or a hypothetical "engineers code of conduct" or whatever as the article seems to advocate.

I gave plenty of examples of software that some people would consider unethical (say drone targeting, or NSA crawling etc that TFA is about) that I would have no problem working on. My ethics are mostly in harmony with the legal systems of democratic nations. I'm sorry if that doesn't accord with your notions of what "should be".

SheepSlapper• 13 years ago

I can't agree more. Legal isn't the same as moral, and conflating the two is pretty disingenuous.

My professional goal (hell, my life goal) is to work on things that make a positive difference in the world. Laws don't necessarily come into it (and sometimes are in direct opposition to this). I believe (or naively hope) that other people in my profession feel the same way, otherwise the future is going to get... interesting.

dylandrop3• 13 years ago

"Every algorithm known to man has both good and bad uses. Not developing algorithms because they might be harmful is insane."

Yep, that missile guiding system someone built for Boeing totally has primarily good uses in mind.

"Work is just work, a means to exchange your talents for money. Keep it legal, do good work. Go home and play with the kids."

Dude, seriously? Everyone should have some sense of morals and question authority. Come on, if we don't question our current way of life, how does anything get better? Why should we be okay with people dying just so we can have a nice, cozy life with our kids?

plinkplonk10• 13 years ago

"Dude, seriously? Everyone should have some sense of morals and question authority"

Yes seriously. My "sense of morals" is very different from yours (in that I'd gladly work on defence tech say.). So what?

yummyfajitas• 13 years ago

The primary purpose of that missile guiding system is to miss civilians.

Unguided bombs are very cheap and highly effective at taking out the target.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War...

TylerE2• 13 years ago

Where do you think GPS came from?

Helianthus2• 13 years ago

This is called a lack of artistic integrity.

And there's nothing wrong with that, you're just excerpting yourself from responsibility, and if enough people do that engineering becomes irresponsible.

Arguably this is a problem right now.

Look, I understand your position, food has to get on the table, but: I don't respect you. I am responsible for everything I put out in the world.

You can take that as a guilt trip if you'd like, but I feel like if you're going to be bald-faced about how you put all the real responsibility on laws and those who make them, I can be blunt about how I view your attitude.

I guess everyone has to find their own relationship to the value of their work.

plinkplonk10• 13 years ago

" but: I don't respect you."

heh sure. whatever makes you happy.

kbenson• 13 years ago

I used to think working for the NSA would be fun, interesting, and in the service of my country. I don't think that anymore...

sentenza3• 13 years ago

I have to disagree. Resorting to "keep it legal" removes any moral obligation. There are ethical decisions to be made, some easy, some not so.

Should IBM not have worked on Computers? No.

Should IBM not have sold to Nazi Germany? Most likely yes.

Should the guy working hard all day to make the Zyklon B have refused to do so? ABSOLUTELY

Back when I went to school, we had one (or two?) hours per week of "ethics class". If there was one thing to take away from those lessons, it's that you can never just refuse to exercise moral/ethical judgement. Acting ethically is one of the central responsibilities that a citizen in a free society has.

shabble2• 13 years ago

Should the guy working hard all day to make the Zyklon B have refused to do so? ABSOLUTELY

Initially at least, Zyklon B was an entirely legitimate pesticide/vermicide that had a broad range of uses. The original form contained a powerful warning odorant to alert users of its presence in sub-lethal concentrations.

I don't think there's any claim that the actual production staff knew exactly where or how it was being used, and so would have no real grounds to refuse or quit. There is evidence that once it was found suitable for killing humans, there was a change in formulation to remove the warning odorant at the direct request of the extermination camp officials.

I'm not sure if that alone would be grounds for staff suspicion, as it was apparently passed off as necessity due to wartime material shortages, which to me would seem plausible.

The production and distributor firms management, however, knew a lot more about what was going on, and where it was being used. Founder Tesch & director Weinbacher were both found guilty in a war-crimes tribunal[1], whilst another employee was acquitted.

So I don't think it's quite so simple a scenario as 'the process engineer for the pesticide vats should have guessed they might be being misused and quit just in case' that you lay out.

[1] http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/WCC/zyklonb.htm

kyzyl4• 13 years ago

Keep it legal, do good work. Go home and play with the kids.

Tell that to the people whose kids got blown up at a wedding by a Hellfire missile that was guided by your TwitterTerroristLocator.so

woah• 13 years ago

Interesting attitude. Why "keep it legal" if this is your opinion? (besides the risk of getting caught).

tlrobinson• 13 years ago

It sounds like you simply allow the law to serves as your morals.

Zigurd3• 13 years ago

"Legal" is exactly what unethical behavior has been hiding behind. Setting your ethics to "legal" is weak.

freshhawk• 13 years ago

Having any ethics whatsoever is "political correctness" now? I don't think you know what that word means.

robotresearcher• 13 years ago

"great working conditions" for me implies that I don't find the work odious. No amount of free soda can make up for having to work on a shitty or immoral product.

This is a luxury afforded me by the decent amount of decently well paid work available to an engineer. I might have less moral freedom if I couldn't feed my family.

0xdeadbeefbabe• 13 years ago

People will use good software, and they'll use it for good and evil. Think of how nginx is used. Software isn't like an article for theguardian.com, which can take an ethical position.

Paralyzing engineers by demanding they consider social complexities seems like a bad strategy for getting things done.

ivanca• 13 years ago

Bullshit; it would be like pretending that tires shouldn't have been created because someday those could be used on war jeeps.

It's not possible to predict the uses of one's work and therefor is impossible to comprehend its ethical implications. And if you add capitalism to the equation it means that someone else is going to create the technology even if you don't just if there is a direct -or even indirect- profit from it regardless of ethics.

So the "problem" is not a burden on individuals of certain professions (e.g. engineers) but on basic social structures.

shabble2• 13 years ago

It's not possible to predict the uses of one's work

Probably not in all cases, but you can often make an educated guess.

You could at least consider classes of activity, ranging from:

Primary, sole purpose is to cause direct harm. You'd have to be dumb or willfully ignorant not to realise. "This BabyFaceMelter technology will be so amazingly terrible nobody will ever want to fight us again!"

High likelihood of indirect harm - nominally for other purposes, but trivial to see simple ways in which it can be weaponised/made harmful. "Our Public Order Droid platforms are all equipped only with non-lethal electro-tickle cannons, and it'd be really hard to put actual bullets in there"

Moderate likelihood of indirect harm. Fairly compelling "good" uses, but still possible to think of ways it could go bad. Less toxic or higher power explosives intended for mining, perhaps.

Too generic to really know - finally, the weakest level that you present, something like better off-road vehicle tyres. Quite a lot of fundamental science (ie: not the "we hypothesise that X will make the Anthrax really angry" sort) has such wide application that you can't really guess. Ditto basic algorithms in maths & CS, or software libraries (is OpenSSL evil?)

I don't totally disagree with you, but you might want to try painting with a slightly smaller brush to make your argument more compelling.

john_b2• 13 years ago

I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

Assuming that an engineer is aware of the eventual applications for his or her work and is ethically mature enough to recognize that some of those applications are evil, destructive, or violate the rights of others, it doesn't necessarily follow that this engineer should refuse to do the work. For one, just recognizing that a technology has harmful applications--even only harmful applications--and refusing to build it doesn't mean that the technology will not come about anyway. If you find the applications harmful and refuse to work on it, others may--and likely will--step in and build it instead. So there is a game theory issue that the article ignores. If many people can profit (financially, professionally, learning) from building technology that eventually becomes harmful, then a sufficient number of those people need to refuse to work on the technology in order for it to not be developed. But decreasing the scarcity of labor will increase the value of it, and thus the rewards for developing this harmful technology will be increased, which creates a more powerful incentive for engineers to "defect" (in the prisoner's dilemma sense) and work on the harmful tech.

There are also objectively good benefits to doing work that is eventually harmful. If you have a family, you can feed and clothe them. You can learn skills and that will help with non-harmful work in the future, and you will meet people who may help you do non-harmful work later. Being intimately familiar with this technology, you will be able to warn others of the dangers of it. Whether these objective goods outweigh the potential bads of a technology is difficult to determine during its development. And where the balance is difficult to determine, engineers, being practical and conservative by nature, will tend to side with the tangible benefits they can get today over the intangible costs that others may incur in the future.

I agree with the article's point that engineers need to develop a broader societal focus[1] and be mindful of the potential uses, especially the unintended ones, of their work. The problem is that awareness alone isn't going to accomplish much because a world full of aware engineers doesn't change the existing incentives.

[1] A good book on this topic is "The Civilized Engineer" by Samuel Florman: http://www.amazon.com/Civilized-Engineer-Samuel-C-Florman/dp...

JoeAltmaier4• 13 years ago

Moral behavior is not a 'game theory' concept. It is what you do even when you don't 'win'. At its heart, moral behavior is NOT doing whatever it takes to benefit yourself, which is the sum of game theory.

So yes, if your project has only harmful application then you shouldn't work on it. Even if someone else most assuredly will (I'm guessing that could be you). Because its wrong, hypocritical.

john_b2• 13 years ago

If you look at these things at an individual level, individual morality is a useful lens. But this topic is really about a class of professionals within a whole society. Influencing behavior through moralizing unfortunately works much better in the ancient tribal environment in which it evolved, where shame and ostracization could be used to punish wayward members of the tribe.

The reality of large societies is that a certain percentage of people will do immoral things even when they know those things are immoral, because they can get away with it or even profit from it. And they will do this especially when the rewards for immoral behavior increase asymptotically due to supply constraints.

Using morals to provide solutions only gets you as far as "X should Y". But prescribing "shoulds" doesn't solve anything. Changing incentives does. How to do that is the real question.

MichaelGG8• 13 years ago

How is it hypocritical?

Working on something harmful may put you in a better position to do something about it.

prodigal_erik2• 13 years ago

Only if you have faith in some kind of mystical virtue separate from all consequences of your acts in the real world. Even an ethical altruist wouldn't be required to make an empty gesture which doesn't benefit anyone.

worldvoyageur• 13 years ago

Since 1925, in a voluntary ritual near the end of a Canadian engineering degree, almost-graduates swear an oath and, upon doing so, are given a small card and a ring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_of_the_Calling_of_an_Eng...

I swore my oath more than 25 years ago and I still have the card in my wallet and the iron ring on the smallest finger of my working hand. A couple times a year, I pull out the card and read it.

The oath reads:

" I [worldvoyageur], in the presence of these my betters and my equals in my Calling, bind myself upon my Honour and Cold Iron, that, to the best of my knowledge and power, I will not henceforth suffer or pass, or be privy to the passing of, Bad Workmanship or Faulty Material in aught that concerns my works before mankind as an Engineer, or in my dealings with my own Soul before my Maker.

MY TIME I will not refuse; my Thought I will not grudge; my Care I will not deny towards the honour, use, stability and perfection of any works to which I may be called to set my hand.

MY FAIR WAGES for that work I will openly take. My Reputation in my Calling I will honourably guard; but I will in no way go about to compass or wrest judgement or gratification from any one with whom I may deal. And Further, I will early and warily strive my uttermost against professional jealousy or the belittling of my working colleagues in any field of their labour.

FOR MY ASSURED FAILURES and derelictions, I ask pardon beforehand of my betters and my equals in my Calling here assembled; praying that in the hour of my temptations, weakness and weariness, the memory of this my Obligation and of the company before whom it was entered into, may return to aid, comfort and restrain. "

AsymetricCom4• 13 years ago

tl;dr: how to be a good robot.

bqe• 13 years ago

You really think that taking an oath to be morally responsible for what you create and how you create it is being a robot?

What a ridiculous thing to say.

_Adam• 13 years ago

How to build a good robot, you mean.

If you want to be a robot, you need a lot of practice. Walking that way is surprisingly hard.

kyzyl4• 13 years ago

No. How to be a responsible engineer who doesn't get people killed. There are situations in life that require one to grow the fuck up, and being a professional engineer is one of them.

bargl• 13 years ago

We had a similar ritual at my school here in the USA. It was optional but many people did it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Engineer

diydsp3• 13 years ago

That's a great oath: Bypassing ethics completely, and swearing devotion to technical quality and not disturbing the porfessional social order, it underscores, bolds and italicizes TFA, which is nicely summarized in the caption under the picture which comes before any of its text:

"Engineering ethics are mostly technical: how to design properly, how to not cut corners, and how to serve our clients well."

Congratulations, you have utterly and perfectly- without wasting materials!- demonstrated why such articles are necessary. In case it's not crystal clear yet, an oath like that would do nothing to encourage an Aaron Swartz or an Ed Snowden.

jff2• 13 years ago

What would you prefer? "I swear to uphold an ethical course of behavior as defined by the current zeitgeist of Hacker News"? It's clear that in delivering a sub-standard project, you're acting badly. But when you make a great product that may be used to harm others?

Many of the creators of the atom bomb have expressed their belief that they did the right thing. I agree with them and would have no ethical problems working on the nuclear stockpile. Many people, however, would consider that extremely bad.

twistedpair• 13 years ago

It's not just Canadian. I did it too for my engineer degrees in the US. My ring is in my dresser, but I still keep it in mind. I was being recruited hard by Picatinny Arsenal and didn't give them the light of day as I'm not keen on building weapons systems.

samograd2• 13 years ago

Thanks. I lost my card years ago...but I don't think I forgot what it said. Maybe I can order a replacement to carry with me to show people at parties.

sigil2• 13 years ago

"Do you regret building the internet because of surveillance?" is the new "Do you regret discovering fission because of the bomb?"

Now, as a technologist I'd never directly contribute to a project whose intent was to kill or surveil people. (I turned down that cushy DoD contract job straight out of college.)

But this whole "as engineers we need to consider the ethical implications" argument is deeply flawed. First, it assumes we can predict how the technology we build will be used. Second, even if we could predict all the uses, should we refrain from building something that has some good uses, just because it has some bad ones? Third...what about the people actually using the thing for evil?

We might as well drop the "as engineers" part and just have a discussion about not doing evil things in general.

dllthomas3• 13 years ago

Obviously we are limited by our predictive capacity, but I don't think "there might be bad and good uses" is really a strong argument. Like anything else, you weigh the good against the bad in making your decision.

sigil2• 13 years ago

That's the thing though. How does one weigh the good against the bad in these cases?

If you're building stuff at the application layer, maybe the use is obvious, but if you're writing a library or a service, how can you know how it will be used? Should you expend time enumerating and assigning probabilistic weights to all the good and evil that could come from it?

Far simpler proscription: as a human using a tool, don't do evil with the tool.

grellas• 13 years ago

Evil behavior, however precisely defined, has been and always will be with us. Technology enhances what we do as human beings and, hence, always has the potential to be applied to ill uses. If someone, then, takes what you develop and applies it for a purpose you never intended in creating it, that is an item beyond your control. Alan Turing - who applied his genius to confer what can only be called immeasurable benefits on society and who used his skills to crack Nazi codes to help end a terrible war - is not ethically responsible for the many consequences inevitably brought into the world simply because computing power can be used to magnify the effects of human evil. Was he (or is any other engineer whose technology is misused) a causal agent in the various bad outcomes we can identify in, for example, the enhanced lethality of weaponry or in the massive spying by governments on their citizenry? In a narrow sense, perhaps yes. When one traces things back up a causal chain, one can theoretically identify every individual actor who made technical innovations that culminated ultimately in a particular bad use of whatever type that afflicts us today. But, though a cause-in-fact, Mr. Turing (and the many engineers who followed him respecting any given facet of computing technology) is not what the lawyers call the "proximate cause" - that is, the immediately enabling agent - of the outcome. Meaning, if you deem it unethical to build bombs, then don't do work for a defense contractor helping to build bombs because your every innovation will be immediately applied to a use you deem unethical. The same for working for NSA in developing sophisticated spying technology. Or for whatever other ill use you can identify in society. But, beyond avoiding direct conduct by which you are proximately helping to cause an outcome you deem wrong, you as a technologist basically have no control over how your work may be applied by others and, as the collective results of such work eventually permeate society, your moral responsibility for the indirect results of your work effectively stand at zero. If the operative standard were otherwise, then all innovation would stand frozen altogether because it is always possible to conceive of an ill use for any technology that makes things faster, more powerful, more efficient, etc. Put any such thing into the hands of human actors and some bad results are guaranteed to follow given enough time and opportunity. Thus, unless one is to freeze all productive activity or is to go insane second-guessing how others might pervert that which is being done for good, engineers must perforce ignore tangential ethical implications over which they have no effective control.

I think it is fair to say that each of us in our given professions (mine being law) ought to avoid being a proximate cause of something deemed wrong even though technically legal (for example, I would not be a "mob lawyer" even though there are some technically very good lawyers who do that work). But even here that is an individual choice for each actor to make. For engineers, some may see it as a great opportunity to do advanced work in some of the social media companies while others may regard such companies as being engaged in unethical conduct as they at least sometimes use dubious techniques to try corral us as consumers into their tight little worlds. For any given engineer, working for such a company doing such things is a matter of conscience. Some may say yes, others no. The same is true in working for a defense contractor or for the government. Or for any other work that is legal but ethically suspect in the eyes of some but not others. It is your choice and it is your conscience.

The author of this piece reflects what I call the bane of associational thinking. He uses the royal "we" to define a group (here, engineers) and then prescribes very broad goals for what "we" "ought" to do. Since all the things described now stand as a matter of private choice over which the "we" group as a whole has no say, then the only way to translate this sort of thing into practical action is to form formal associations, assign things to committees, and then issue a series of prescriptions on what the group members ought to do. That may be fine in terms of the association giving rules that amount to exhortations to do good (who would disagree with that). But, beyond that, do you really want an organized association dictating what today stand as your private choices for your career? Or, worse, do you want such an association to lobby governments to adopt their strictures and give them the force of law? I would think not. How, then, can "we" do better? Of course, the question is always described as difficult and is left for further discussion precisely because it has no real answer apart from acting on individual conscience or apart from the potentially coercive ones of letting some association or government dictate your career choices and opportunities. Perhaps this sort of reasoning is justified as encouraging people to have a heightened conscience about what they do, and in that respect it is fine. But that is really as far as it goes before veering into unacceptable alternatives.

Our capacity to do wrong is innate to our nature, as is our capacity to do good. We should not stop trying to do good through our creativity just because others can take what we do and commit wrongs with it. Nor should we feel guilty about what we do as long as we in good conscience can say to ourselves that we are doing something productive and worthwhile and not directly causing harm to others. The "we" issue is in reality much more of an "I" issue and, for that, you should examine what you do carefully and strive for the good regardless of what others may do with it. If you want to exhort others to do better by your standards, then all the better. Just don't dictate to them on matters over which people in good conscience may disagree.

plinkplonk10• 13 years ago

you've said this much better than I ever could. I wish I could write so clearly. Much respect.

rayiner4• 13 years ago

Your point about causation is a good one. Its worth thinking through the causal chain of how your work is used as an engineer, even if you conclude that you are not the proximate cause and therefore do not bear responsibility.

I live in the Delaware Valley, an area of the country devastated by engineers. Engineers built communications and automation technology, which has allowed executives to outsource and eliminate jobs far more quickly than people here can get trained for new ones. The human toll of these changes has been higher than drone and surveillance technology combined.

Are engineers working in communications and automation the proximate cause of these changes? Maybe or maybe not. But how long or short is the chain of causation? I think its not very deep, not when an automation company might market its technology by mentioning the labor cost savings. At the very least, before anyone gets sanctimonious, they should think about what sorts of impacts their own work has on other people.

kreek• 13 years ago

In my previous job this hit home quite hard, one day many of the people who helped us build the system that automated their jobs were laid off.

Then once the system was fully streamlined we developers were laid off as well.

In addition some of the end product was used in aerospace so there's a good chance it could be used for 'bad' (depending on your perspective) things.

Now I work in video games, not curing cancer, but in my search I was looking for a company that at least did no harm.

michaelochurch7• 13 years ago

Engineers built communications and automation technology, which has allowed executives to outsource and eliminate jobs far more quickly than people here can get trained for new ones. The human toll of these changes has been higher than drone and surveillance technology combined.

I think this comes down to a conflict (not very well fought from the engineers' side) between cost-cutters and excellence-maximizers. The first category want to take something that's already being done and cut people out of the action. That's not always a bad thing, because they attack inefficiencies and should, in theory, make the world richer. However, they end up taking almost all of the gains for themselves (and externalizing costs). The second also want to cut costs, remove grunt work, etc. but because they want to do more, i.e. "now that I shaved clock cycles off of this operation, that frees up resources to do more cool shit".

Businessmen tend to be cost-cutters, because that's the one thing people can agree on in executive tussles. For executives, R&D, philanthropy, etc. all devolve into bikeshedding, but the bottom line is a common language. People with vision, on the other hand, tend to get into conflicts and causes that have negative expectancy for their political fortunes. Engineers tend to be excellence-maximizers.

The excellence-maximizers do believe that they're helping society and adding value-- and they're right, at least on the latter. They cut jobs and create value. The problem is that society is run by greedy cost-cutters who have no vision but a lot of greed, and who make sure that none of the gains trickle back. Thus, those affected by the industry changes never get the resources (time, money, education) to survive them.

samograd2• 13 years ago

Evil behavior, however precisely defined, has been and always will be with us.

But from what I've heard, Zarathustra was the first to tell people of the difference so that they could see it.

No reference, just something I think I've read or heard somewhere, sometime. Or maybe Nietzsche[1] said it somewhere.

[1] http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1998

subsystem• 13 years ago

He uses the royal "we" to define a group (here, engineers) and then prescribes very broad goals for what "we" "ought" to do.

That is pretty much the definition of ethics [0].

http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/whatisethics.h...

patcon• 13 years ago

The closer in that link is representative:

Ethics also means, then, the continuous effort of studying our own moral beliefs and our moral conduct, and striving to ensure that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are reasonable and solidly-based.

efkztw• 13 years ago

To me, an ethical decision is one in which the result does not, and will not, put an individual, or a group of people, at an obvious disadvantage, while benefitting another.

nu23• 13 years ago

There seem to be a lot of defensive comments, which I guess, seem to be coming from the focus on individual guilt. Focussing too much on individual choice is examining a particular solution approach and not the problem itself which needs to be solved. Lack of awareness is not a valid excuse, because even when some people speak out on the harmful consequences of technology(people have long talked about the surveillance state), they are ignored since we dont have systems in place to do a cost-benefit analysis and coordinate around a solution. Sure, there are many problems with the individual approach(what if somebody else is hired?, what if opponents develop a weapon technology?). But this only highlights the difficulty of the problem. This is why the 'we' becomes appropriate, because individuals are weak(unless they are at some critical stage).

There are potentially many developments in areas like nanotech, bioengineering, ai with which humanity might face big troubles. For this, there needs to be some strategy identifying such potential problems, and putting precautionary measures on r&d. Something like this happened with nuclear scientists hiding their research before WW2. This is harder to replicate now, with the science and engineering community distributed more widely between competing nations. So, a first step could be to acheive a shared understanding of common interests and ways to coordinate with each other.

Alternatively, energy can be poured into defensive measures for defeating harmful technologies. We already have many engineers developing counter-technologies. Also, Snowden himself was an example of exposing something which he considered harmful.

akavel• 13 years ago

From what you write, I get an impression that you claim this article is irrelevant and worthless, especially because "engineering tools can always be used both for good and bad", and thus an engineer has totally no responsibility as to where his creations are used. But actually, an engineer can choose for which company he works, can't he? So, he already has some choice! Sure, in the end, a tool he created might get used by an "evildoing" company, if buyer of the engineer's work sells it, but then at least the engineer had his totally real chance to at least try to make it harder, by not selling immediately to the evildoer, doesn't he? I don't understand how can you claim that an engineer cannot make such a choice, and "must perforce ignore tangential ethical implications".

You also claim, that if engineer wanted to care about ethics, he would have "to go insane second-guessing how others might pervert [his work]". Classical rhetorical maneuver of exaggeration - why immediately claim his only option is "insane second-guessing"? Please don't remove engineer from ability of basic observation and critical thinking - as some totally sane observation has already power to reveal quite a lot of morally suspicious activity of a company! So, does an engineer have moral right to close his eyes, or claim that what he sees, and by his work facilitates, he actually does not facilitate? Is that what you claim?

Now, the problem is, first of all, that it's easy and cozy to claim no responsiblity and no power. But this always is, was, and will be easy. And second problem, and that's how I understand the gist of the most of the article, is that because of corporations (especially their size), this observation and reasoning actually did recently get quite a bit harder and more difficult. But therefore, it should be considered important to try and make an effort of thinking about how to reverse that, so that engineers could regain more control and insight here.

Also, from many problems I have with your response, one other that shines is your claim that the article calls "to form formal associations, assign things to committees, and then issue a series of prescriptions on what the group members ought to do". Where, oh where, does it give even a slightest hint in this direction??? Please!

msandford• 13 years ago

As an engineer I really hate the idea that it should fall to me to quit as basically my only option if my boss wants me to do something that I think is unethical. I understand where the authors of the Guardian article are coming from. But I also think it's shitty to suggest that because of someone else's poor morals I have to find a new job.

I say this as a guy who's successfully avoided working at companies where I might be put in the position to have to make that choice. So I'm not bitter that I've already had to quit a job as a result. But it does kinda bum me out that there are a lot of jobs I can't take because of the possibility of my work getting abused.

What bugs me is that the implicit assumption here is that management is corrupt and can't be trusted to be ethical themselves, and thus it falls to the engineers to boycott actually doing what they pay us to do. Why shouldn't the blame go to the people who are holding the reins?

pointernil• 13 years ago

.) German speaking engineers can validate/reevaluate their "position" by checking out:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesinnungsethik

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verantwortungsethik

It's strange to see those wikipedia topics don't have an English translations (yet).

.) It's certainly interesting to see in which ways engineers who chose to follow "Gesinnungsethik" justify their "choice"... interesting, in the sense of: not differently at all compared to any other profession. I think this is the result of last decade(s) or so of overdone and misunderstood "individualism" culture.

.) IF software eats the world - and it certainly looks like this right now - we better make the human beings who wield and create these very powerful tools more sensitive to the responsibilities and consequences of their works.

.) I'm sure true treasures can be found regarding this topic in similar discussions which took place in the non-software engineering community decades ago and I guess the statements and positions used there are applicable in the software world.

lettergram• 13 years ago

"I don't intend to build in order to have clients; I intend to have clients in order to build."

tehwalrus• 13 years ago

I don't think anyone actively works to do evil things in engineering. However, it is possible/easy to end up making something that is used for evil by someone else later - and justifying making weapons through notions of "defense" has been commonplace for years (although I don't agree with the justifications, generally).

I've never quite been happy with open source licenses for this reason - and I've considered writing a pacifists' OSS license with a clause along the lines of:

"No license is granted for any purpose of deliberate harm or death to humans [and other intelligent species]; whether in a deliberate weapon or implement of torture, or whether in a targeting or guidance system for any such device. Missile 'sheild's, designed and only usable for blocking incoming weapons are excluded from this category."

You could hypothetically write additional clauses for other objectionable things, pornography and fossil fuel drilling/mining come to mind.

It wouldn't stop people reimplementing your code from a specification/summary, as many companies do with OSS that they need to use but can't re-release, but it does make making weapons and such more expensive to make (which will decrease supply, assuming your code was ever in contention for use in such a system.)

logfromblammo• 13 years ago

Do not call upon engineers to reject unethical projects. There is always the danger that they will redesign the society's ethics instead of the work!

crazygringo• 13 years ago

Engineers are behind government spying tools and military weapons. We should be conscious of how our designs are used

Except that it's not always clear whether something is ethically good/bad. If you're working on a system for tracking cell phone calls, this can be used to protect against terrorism for public safety (good) or discovering mob or child porn networks (good) or for targeted blackmail (bad) or a surveillance state (bad) -- and the engineer working on it not only has no guarantees on what it is being planned for, but also has no crystal ball to know how its use might change in the future.

And different peoples' ethics are different. So while saying we should consider the ethical implications of our work sounds nice... it sounds awfully simplistic.

crazy1van• 13 years ago

Shouldn't everyone consider the ethical implications of their work? I don't see anything unique to engineers in this regard.

ahomescu1• 13 years ago

I find it heavily disturbing to blame engineers for something they had no part in deciding. If a politician/general/manager decides to use some technology for "evil" purposes (for whatever definition of evil), the responsibility should fall primarily on whoever makes that decision.

Engineers who are unhappy with how their work is used are free to quit their jobs and work on something else (in most cases). However, since they get little say in how their work is used, they should also get little responsibility over it.

kevinchen• 13 years ago

I take issue with the photo caption, which is repeated in the article:

Engineering ethics are mostly technical: how to design properly, how to not cut corners, and how to serve our clients well.

The first thing in the ACM code of ethics talks about protecting "fundamental human rights." http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics

Same deal with the IEEE: the first item talks about the "welfare of the public." http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html

The issue is not that engineering ethics is too technical. It stems from the fact that everybody defines what is ethical for themselves -- there are few universal opinions on ethics, just as with political opinions.

toblender• 13 years ago

In Ontario, and much of Canada, to call yourself an Engineer you must pass an exam and meet the requirements. Part of this exam is about ethics. In Canada, Engineers have an iron ring to remind them of their duty to society.

The issue is the term "duty" and "public" can get tricky.

How far does duty go? Does it include compromising morals?

Does the "public" include the enemy that we would deploy the technology against?

There is no answer that is without some shortcoming.

As engineers, we must consider the ethical implications of our work

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