As a computer engineering undergraduate at UH Manoa, I have previously taken a course on ethics (EE 495). In this course, the curriculum outlines the Code of Ethics for the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE). In this course, we looked at multiple case studies and a few fictional examples for help illustrate different parts of the Code of Ethics.
For one thing, conflicts of interest was a big topic. We were given an example of a civil engineer designing new infrastructure in an area that he hlived and knew that he could design it in a certain way that would add more value to property he owned in that area but might be uneccesary and more costly than requied by the client. The question was asked what should the engineer do, and what moral lines to draw.
Another thing we learned in addition to the Code of Ethics is a series of ‘tests’ you can do to see how ‘moral’ something will be in your eyes and others. For example, would you want somebody else to make that kind of decision when you are at the receiving end? How would you feel if you go through that decision? Would somebody you look up to make that kind of decision?
In computer science, ethics comes up as well, as computer scientists are software engineers (emphasis on engineer). They too must realize their work impacts a wide variety of people, just as we saw with the case study written about in ‘The Code I’m Still Ashamed of’ written by Bill Sourour.
In this case study, Bill is asked to write a software program that acts as a personality quiz that is essentially an advertisement to young teenage girls about a new drug. The drug has some sever sideaffects, and one girl commits suicide after taking the drug that was marketed to her through the quiz that he created (by orders of his employer).
My personal stance on this is that I feel it was unethical of the company in the first place to make such an useless quiz appear like a genuine online quiz but have all of the answers point to the same result and for it to be an ultimmate trick. However, it is difficult to put a good deal of blame on the software engineer as he seemd to be ingorant of he drug’s killer side effects.
It seems that the case could’ve been different if the girls had suffered milder side effects that did not include suicidal thoughts. Then there would be no headline, and he wouldn’t feel guilty because no one would’ve gotten hurt as bad. Also, is it the responsibility of the engineer to be an expert on pharmaceutical drugs?
However, right from the get go, the quiz did not represent itself accurately. The code he created doesn’t do ‘good’ for the general public as it is simply a cruel trick of being something useful that is actually an advertisement, and his own ignorance of what the drug was means his name will be attached to that quiz (internally) for a while and he will still yet be ‘ashamed’ of the code he had written.