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Responsible engineering to guide us through what regulation cannot��

On March 19, CU Engineering’s Herbst program for Engineering, Ethics, and Society hosted Glen Miller for their Moulakis Lecture Series for Responsible Engineering. Glen Miller is an Instructional Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Texas A&M University with a background in chemical engineering.��

Through his teaching and research, Miller helps people to understand and thrive in an evolving sociotechnical world. In particular, his work focuses on engineering ethics as it relates to artificial intelligence (AI) and cyberethics.��

The lecture provided students with the opportunity to learn from Miller’s expertise on what responsible engineering is today and how they can embody it moving forward in their careers.��

��Miller provided students with a philosophical background on why it is useful to understand the role of engineers through a “sociotechnical” understanding of the world, and then illuminated how this understanding allows us to see the limits of regulatory bodies. Miller's talk culminated with a call to action, emphasizing the importance of individual responsibility over passive reliance on regulatory bodies. And that shifting emphasis in this way will help us close today's widening gap between public interest and engineering design.��

Miller's argument is grounded on concepts from a variation of phenomenology, a philosophical approach that attempts to describe reality from the lens of human consciousness. Postphenomenology, originally developed by Don Ihde, blends elements of phenomenology and American pragmatism together. It is also referred to as the “philosophy of mediation” because it treats technology as an active participant in our reality as humans, thereby mediating our experiences. Technology mediates, standing between us and our acts in the world and our experiences of it, as a sort of active participant.������

Using this view of what technology does, we are led, argues Miller, to conceive of our collective relation to technology as "socio-technical,” and to look at the assemblages of people and things as sociotechnical systems. Miller’s lecture at CU by using a “socio-technical” lens to consider the impacts of the work that engineers do. Using the socio-technical lens makes us more sensitive to the various ways that any given person, device, or machine is not isolated, but has a complex relation to makers, users, and other systems, including the cultural and natural environments.��

Miller highlights that one of the reasons there is such a gray area on ethics in engineering today is that much of the innovation today is proprietary, and regulatory agencies can’t keep up.��

“The easiest argument for the legitimacy of regulation (which is restriction of freedom of action by some group of people) is that there is public interest involved….Most of the work computer scientists do is proprietary: no one ever directly experiences what's done by it, and so it's not as easy to see that there's a clear public interest in regulating what's happening in a private corporation,” said Miller.��

Often where public interest is not obvious, there is limited scrutiny of whether the technology (product, software, design, service) has a net positive impact on the public, or whether adequate checks are in place to prevent harm to the public. Here is where a sociotechnical approach is useful, because it allows us to understand that a threat to the public can include something like (intentional or not) perpetuation of misinformation, algorithmic bias that degrades mental health among users, and other harms less tangible than say data leaks or the selling of personal data. When we see technology as participants in, or co-creators of our reality, then we can shift the conversation to “is it legal?” to “does this work enhance the world we live in enough to justify its existence?”��

Professions like civil and architectural engineering have long had strict regulations from the government, as infrastructure (roads, bridges) and building design (homes, hospitals) clearly directly affects the public. For professions like computer science and computer engineering (social media app development, internet infrastructures, AI development, software development, etc.), where products are often privately developed and used, the public interest is less clear, and regulation often more limited.����

If we can agree that much of engineering falls under “public interest”, and that regulatory bodies do not have the manpower or expertise to effectively regulate such a growing and diverse field, then a simple solution reveals itself: more responsibility may fall to the engineer.����

[Pull quote] “That's a pretty new mindset for regulation, and I think it opens up some some problems for engineers that they're not aware of, that the regulatory state has changed. They may think the regulator will be there to keep them from their mistakes or to provide a backstop against what they’re trying to do. I don't think that's there anymore: the old adversarial model- at least partially adversarial model- of regulation, doesn't seem to hold anymore. And I think ultimately what that does is to put more responsibility on the engineer.”��

Miller left students with four key takeaways (see Figure 1). Three out of the four points - think in terms of socio-technical systems, practice reflection and informed imagination, and keep questioning- depend on critical reflection on the individual level. The fourth point-Develop a multifaceted identity as an engineer outside of your company through professional societies- points to community building as a way to become a more responsible engineer.����

CU's College of Engineering orients students to their professional obligations by introducing them to the relevant associations and codes of ethics. It also sponsors programs like Herbst and Engineering Leadership that actively cultivate the critical perspectives, personal ethics, and broader awareness that our students need and that companies are looking for.��

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CONTENT FOR FIGURE 1 IS BELOW:����

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��1. Think in terms of sociotechnical systems.��

Taking this mindset ensures that we do not treat our designs in a vacuum, and critically consider the impacts our projects and products will have on the human experience. This view is more holistic than, say, just using impact metrics such as carbon emissions, manufacturing energy intensity, percent waste, etc.��

2. Develop a multifaceted identity as an engineer outside of your company through professional societies.��

Participating in professional engineering societies not only encourages lifelong learning, but also exposes you to engineering practices outside of your company, and provides one with a network to benchmark one’s company culture, reporting practices, and embodiment of engineering ethics.��

3. Practice reflection and informed imagination.��

Constant reflection and broadening our mindset to include new possible methods gets us out of the dangerous mindset of “this is just how it is done” or “this is how it’s always been”.��

4. Keep questioning.��

One should always be asking themselves, “what is responsible engineering today?”, as the sociotechnical landscape is always evolving, and with it the nature and weight of the engineer’s duty to the public.��

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