Ethics

One of the most important parts of being an engineer is ensuring that you are ethical. A code of ethics helps ensure that you produce safe products that positively affect the world. Computer engineering has some specific requirements for ethics that other fields don't need to deal with, such as the reliability of the code.

In computer engineering, one major ethical obligation is the reliability of code. When working with low-level code and hardware, the product must keep working, especially for systems that demand high reliability, such as vehicles. If anything were to fail, it could lead to death in these situations. These situations are why computer engineers must uphold the safety and welfare of the public. We need to produce reliable and secure systems to ensure that we are unable to harm people. Examples of these systems would be airplanes, cars, and telephone systems. If a large vehicle like an airplane or car were to become non-operational at high speeds, this could lead to the death of the passengers. And for communication systems, this could prevent emergency calls from going through, preventing a person from being saved. These situations are why it's necessary to follow development practices that strive to uphold the public's welfare.

One example where IEEE's violated these codes of ethics was the Volkswagen emissions scandal in 2015. Volkswagen had software in their cars to detect if the car was being tested and then changed how much the cars emitted. The primary competing interests here are the profit that Volkswagen would get by being able to market a high fuel economy and the legality and ethics of polluting the air more. Besides violating the law, excessive pollution also can harm public welfare. To not violate ethical codes, an engineer along the chain of command should have refused to implement this feature into Volkswagen's cars. No one ever took the responsibility to point this issue out, so the feature got implemented regardless.

The previous example was pretty simple in who was right and who was wrong, but there are also situations where there are multiple conflicting ethical principles that are more difficult to navigate. One example of this is the emergence of social media. There are aspects of social media that damage public welfare and health, such as its potential to diminish mental health due to the constant comparison to others and sleep disturbance from the presence of blue light. There are also benefits to this technology, though; increasing communications between people worldwide could potentially be beneficial to society. It's hard to determine what is more beneficial, but in the end, I think the ability to quickly communicate with and entertainment outweighs the potential cons of social media.

Now to reflect on some of my ethical values and how they relate to the Volkswagen incident. I strongly value responsibility. If Volkswagen had been more responsible, they wouldn't have modified their cars like that. They would have realized that what they were doing was harming others; they ceased that behavior. Honesty is also a very important virtue. If Volkswagen valued honesty more, they might not have engaged in this behavior, as they are lying to both their customers and the government. Fidelity is another valuable virtue. If Volkswagen had been more faithful to their clients and their industry, they would not have betrayed the trust of their clients and their industry as a whole. These are the most important virtues relating to Volkswagen since they emphasize doing the bare minimum to be ethical. Other virtues like charity and self-discipline apply more to an individual instead of a company as a whole.