Why Engineers Must Consider the Ethical Implications of Their Work 406
An anonymous reader writes "An article by Abbas El-Zein at The Guardian explores the ethical responsibilities for engineers who create and maintain 'technologies of violence.' He says, 'Engineers who see themselves as builders of the shelter and infrastructure for human needs also use their expertise in order to destroy and kill more efficiently. 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? There is more than one answer to the question of course, but two points are especially pertinent: the common good we engineers see ourselves serving and our relationship to authority. ... Our ethics have become mostly technical: how to design properly, how to not cut corners, how to serve our clients well. We work hard to prevent failure of the systems we build, but only in relation to what these systems are meant to do, rather than the way they might actually be utilised, or whether they should have been built at all. We are not amoral, far from it; it's just that we have steered ourselves into a place where our morality has a smaller scope.'"
Already does. (Score:5, Interesting)
War Engines (Score:2, Interesting)
We engineers got our historical start by building WAR engines.
They do (Score:5, Interesting)
Other guys I know are just happy to have a job. Some people consider it unethical to work in the corporate world at all, so just because you consider something unethical, doesn't mean everyone considers it unethical. The NSA has the purpose of catching terrorists, which is a good goal. The reason we don't like them is because of the abuses, not because of their goal.
Re:Because... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They do (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked on a military project in the early part of the 2000s focused on cracking cell-phone encryption technology. At the time, it was just an interesting problem, with the potential to maybe "help fight terrorism". I didn't really think a lot about the implications of the work, I was just glad to have an interesting job.
I've now got a bit more perspective. Maybe the technology I worked on helped us catch Osama bin Laden. Or maybe it's helping the NSA listen to American citizens. Maybe both.
I don't think it's as simple as saying that engineers are responsible for all of the uses of the technologies they build, but I don't think we can ignore all responsibility either. Something I think about a lot these days.
Re:Scalpel or gun can be used for good or bad ... (Score:5, Interesting)
"when the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? it's not my department, says Wernher Von Braun."
He didn't say that, but that summarizes the lives of thousands of people who make a living designing and building weapons (except a few fanatics who relish the though that their weapons kill $bad_guy)
That summarizes perhaps a small minority who design and build weapons. Lets consider the M1 Garand Rifle of the U.S. Army and Marine Corp. It was designed during peace time in the 1920s and 30s. It was used to destroy the Third Reich in Europe in the 1940s and in the 1960s it was used by some panicked National Guard to kill students at Kent State University in Ohio. Most of the engineers envisioned a use of the "destroy the Third Reich" type, not the students at Kent State type.
Re:War Engines (Score:5, Interesting)
We still haven't used up the Purple Heart medals we manufactured in the 1940s in anticipation of the casualties we expected in the invasion of Japan. In the context of WWII, the atomic bomb undoubtedly created a net savings of both allied and Japanese lives.
I Faced That Dilemma (Score:5, Interesting)
I was appalled that American citizens could dream up such an incredibly horrible intention: I can't say more, but the goal (in part) was to efficiently kill innocent civilians.
My choice was clear: I packed up, went to the airport, and bought a ticket home. On Monday, I was back at my regular desk. There was simply no way my conscience would allow me to optimize the schedule and effectiveness of such a project. There was never any repercussion, from anyone. I understand the contract was cancelled for non-performance several months later.
We who understand technology need to make value judgements: Do YOU want to write code that disadvantages fellow citizens? Do YOU want to create systems that transfer wealth from middle-class to rich folks? Do YOU want to write code that has secrets that could harm someone in the future buried inside? Do YOU want to make money by cheating ordinary citizens (think High-frequency "trading")? Do YOU want to see more systems, like NSA's, that violate the constitution, the law, and common decency?
I didn't, and I don't. Stand up for what you believe.
And then... (Score:5, Interesting)
You end up with the engineering equivalent of pharmacists refusing to sell contraceptives because they think that contraceptives are immoral.
It's amazing how everyone who says "so-and-so profession must consider the ethical implications of their work" always imagines that the person considering the ethics happens to be considering ethics that they agree with. They never think that they might consider unethical contraceptives, abortion, gay sex, miscegenation, etc.
We *want* apartment owners to say "If you use that apartment for sodomy, I am not responsible just because I rented you the apartment you used to do it in."
Re:War Engines (Score:5, Interesting)
it wasn't just Germany developing atomic weapons, Japan was as well
Among their plans was one to dirty-bomb the US west coast, San Francisco in particular.
They also understood the potential for a fission bomb and were working on it. This is why they recognized the A-bomb right away.
That's also why it was important to bomb Nagasaki the week after Hiroshima. This discredited the generals' claim that making these things was hard and the US couldn't have very many of them. Dropping two in as many weeks raised the spectre of one a week forever.
And the generals were right. As I understand it, the US had one in the pipeline and enough material for one or two more. Then there'd have been a several month pause, followed by about one a month.
This dearth of material, combined with the fact that the first one dropped was an untested design so failure WAS an option, was why there wasn't a demo to try to convince the Japanese to knuckle under without an actual bombing. The less-than-a-handful were too precious to be spent on other than actual targets.