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| The Engineering Sheffield contingent- Education is nothing without people |
The overarching theme of the SEFI conference this year was around educational approaches to developing responsible engineers. Alongside this, a recurring theme both at this year's conference and the last was around how and when to bring social sciences into the engineering curriculum to embed engineering for social change. It was concluded that the presumption that technology is at least neutral when used right, needs to be interrogated more frequently and robustly as part of our curriculum.
One of the sessions which stood out most for me on this topic was a keynote speech on “Engaging moral imagination in Engineering Ethics Education” from Donna Riley who is the Dean of Engineering at the University of New Mexico. She was talking about the degree to which institutional power shapes codes of ethics and how these codes reflect the political and leadership values of the time. To make her point she took a code of ethics drawn from social work and replaced “Social workers” with “Engineers” with the following result:
Engineers’ primary goal is to help people in need and address social problems
Engineers challenge social injustice
Engineers practise cultural and epistemic humility
Engineers respect the inherent dignity and worth of the person
Engineers recognise the central importance of human relationships
Engineers seek to live in peace with their individual selves, others, and the planet
Interested in this idea, I looked for a comparison and found the current code of ethics for the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) which states that Engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, shall:
Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.
Perform services only in areas of their competence.
Issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.
Act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees.
Avoid deceptive acts.
Conduct themselves honorably, responsibly, ethically, and lawfully so as to enhance the honor, reputation, and usefulness of the profession.
Whilst both codes address ethical and professional responsibilities, code 2 from the NSPE is more focussed on ensuring that engineers adhere to high standards of professional conduct, whilst the first code taken from social work revolves entirely around the social and ethical implications of engineering, giving the engineer the role and responsibility for helping people in need, addressing social problems and challenging social injustice through their work. The social work code takes a broader view of engineering than the NSPE code, positioning it as a profession which can and should contribute to a just and equitable society. Riley asked What structural change would be required to enact these principles?. Her suggested solution was that “Engineers should stop focusing on ‘what works’ or ‘what is required’ (e.g for accreditation) and focus instead on what students ought to learn, moving away from outcomes-based assessments toward those that are relational, process-driven reflective, participatory, and liberatory” She asked “are we puppeteers of accreditation -aiming for the bare minimum of ethics?”
After the lecture I read Riley’s work Engineering and Social Justice (2008), which is available on Starplus. She has an interesting section on how humour around engineers is revealing about the mindsets of many engineers, showing how often engineers are so focussed on the problem solving aspect of their work that they miss consideration of the possible damaging effects of what they are creating. The joke in point reads:
“A lawyer, a priest, and an engineer are scheduled to be executed by guillotine. The lawyer goes first, the executioner pulls the cord, but nothing happens. “Double Jeopardy! You have to let me go!,” cries the lawyer. And the executioner does. The priest is next, the same thing happens. “Divine Intervention! You have to let me go!,” cries the priest. And the executioner does. The engineer is next. As the executioner gets ready to pull the cord, the engineer cries, “Wait! I think I see your problem . . . ”
How often do we structure our teaching around problem solving without critical exploration of potential uses and impact of the final product? For example, how often is the task to build a bridge without questioning the impact the bridge will have on existing ecosystems, on climate change, on displacement of communities, economic implications, indigenous rights or historical preservation? Do we situate ourselves as engineers as people who have a voice in the use of our work or are we demoting ourselves to “just someone who works here”?
By not seeing wide-ranging ethical considerations as not only part of but central to an engineer’s role, social injustice will continue to be perpetuated albeit unintentionally. James Reith wrote in his article can a bridge be unethical? “It’s doubtful that the Google engineers who produced that racist AI did so intentionally. But they still made it. They failed in their responsibility to prevent racism from occurring in their work. It is our duty as technologists to take responsibility for the values we inscribe in our designs; to make doing so a routine, boring part of the design process.”
Our curricula are full of design processes, to add an extra stage would be easily done and would reimagine the scope of the engineers decision making remit, empowering them with the responsibility not only for the technical solution to a problem but the social implications of the product.
As Riley asked “what would it mean for the decision sometimes to be NOT to engineer?”