Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Contribute Subscribe
Opinion
Engineering
As engineers, we must consider the Advertisement
Thu 5 Dec 2013 13.45 GMT Engineers are behind government spying tools and military
weapons. We should be conscious of how our designs are used
1,446 129
Engineering ethics are mostly technical: how to design properly, how to not cut corners, and how to serve our
O
clients well. Photograph: Bloomberg
One could ask similar questions about engineers who build technologies of
violence. Although in the west, we use the euphemism "defence" – and
weapons often do serve this purpose – arms are just as likely to be used for
furthering less-than-honourable goals, whether invading other countries,
most viewed
bombing rebellious populations or staging coups against democratically-
elected governments. Engineers who see themselves as builders of the Trump's UN ambassador pick,
Heather Nauert, withdraws
shelter and infrastructure for human needs also use their expertise in order
from consideration
to destroy and kill more efficiently.
When doctors or nurses use their Advertisement Cancún shooting: five people
knowledge of anatomy in order to gunned down in Mexico's
Ad closed by tourist hotspot
torture or conduct medical
experiments on helpless subjects, we Report this ad
are rightly outraged. Why doesn't Pence hails 'remarkable,
Why this ad? extraordinary' Trump tenure
society seem to apply the same
in attack on US allies
standards to engineers? There is
more than one answer to the
Arjen Robben: ‘If you ask what
question of course, but two points Biomass Boiler 1-100 t/h
is the worst stadium for me,
are especially pertinent: the common Industrial Boiler 1-100 Ton Per
it’s Liverpool’
Hour for Steam & Power
good we engineers see ourselves Generation in Factories
serving and our relationship to
Tormenting Meghan Markle
authority. has become a national sport
that shames us
Health is an unambiguously positive social good that gives the medical Catherine Bennett
profession a strong moral purpose. The same can be said of justice for
practitioners of the law. Lawyers and doctors are expected to act in a
particular way and, sometimes, to become the custodians of the social good
their respective professions embody. Whether they do or not is a different
matter.
Today, our profession seems to have preserved the sense that technology is
almost by necessity a force for good. We are focused on the technical and
managerial sides of technology – how to design algorithms; how to build
machines – but not so much on the context of its deployment or its
unintended consequences. We are not very interested in the politics and
social dynamics.
In the US, freelance consultant engineers – who appear to have controlled the
American Society of Civil Engineers in the late 19th century, and created a
strong and autonomous professional identity – were swept away by a
corporate model in which most engineers became paid employees of
industry. Today, engineering in the English-speaking world largely sees itself
as a tool of industry. There are many advantages to this of course, including
more resources at our disposal to do our work. But one major drawback is
that engineers, as a result, have far less intellectual and practical autonomy
than they should.
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.
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. However, we are part and parcel of industrial modernity
with all its might, advantages and flaws, and we we therefore contribute to
human suffering as well as flourishing.
While there are no easy answers to the questions raised here, we can
certainly do better. We can claim, and live up to, our role as social custodians
of technology, conscious of its strengths and dangers, capable of navigating
its technical, ecological, political and social dimensions alike – even if this
might require more years of study for engineering University degrees.
[P]eople should think about it. But I'm just an engineer, basically.
It will be a bright day for our profession when we start producing more
engineers who, while just as smart as Rogers, have the will and the
intellectual capacity to engage with bigger questions about the ethics,
politics and social ramifications of their inventions.
Author's note: the opinions expressed in this article are his own and not those of
the University of Sydney.
Topics
Engineering Opinion
Ethics / Higher education / comment
7h 9h 11h 11h
Are ‘Micro-Mansions’ the 25 Insanely Cool Products Every Driver In Pakistan Streaming, diversity drive
Next Big Thing? From America Finally in Should Have These Cheap 'epic' African stories: Ejiofor
Pakistan Night Driving Glasses. They
MANSION GLOBAL FRANCE 24
Are Genius!
NEXT TECH
ZALOTECH
Rare 1900s Photos Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Young, indigenous Brazilians Johnny Depp Sells First of
Captured Jones Splashes Out on turn to YouTube to combat Five Eclectic L.A.
Superyacht racism (1/2) Penthouses for $2.5 million
THEBROFESSIONAL.NET
MANSION GLOBAL FRANCE 24 MANSION GLOBAL
One of humanity's WORST reactions, and the one that I believe most responsible
for tragedy, is the "knee-jerk" reaction that leads to paralysis by fear or fury (the
fight-or-flight syndrome). Enlightenment occurs when the brain's cortext is
allowed to fully moderate the reptilian brain's fight-or-flight response: reaching
out instead of striking out.
Snowden was brave - no doubt about that. How many of us would have dared that
sacrifice? How many of us would have remained quiet out of fear?
I fear too many engineers throughout history have only been able to put their expertise
to good use by building weapons; case in point being Werner Von Braun.
Robert Oppenheimer would be another. The human race always has a demand for new
ways to kill one another. Perhaps engineers around the world merely satisfy that demand.
Share Report
For every engineer working on weapons there are hundreds working on benign
projects
Share Report
Of course. I never disputed that. But a disturbing number do find their calling in
weapons...
Share Report
Most popular
Back to top
© 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.