Seminar 3
Ethics in Engineering
Engineering ethics deals with the ethical issues of developing and implementing new technologies as well as with the guiding principles of engineering practice. In this seminar we will cover both of these aspects.
Reading before the seminar
Ethical issues of designing new technologies
1. Autonomous Systems: social, legal and ethical issues, The Royal Academy of Engineering. (see Reading material)
An example of professional code of ethics
2. IEEE Code of Ethics http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html
Written reflection (at least 500-600 words)
Select one of the following areas
- E-democracy: Electronic voting
- Location based services
- Wind power
- E-health: Tele/Remote-presence, i.e. physicians working at a distance
- E-health: Domestic autonomous robotic personal assistants
and analyse it from an ethical point of view. In your analysis:
- Identify the stakeholders, that is, all the actors that are connected to this technology, including for example designers, equipment and service providers and users
- Identify a few ethical issues related to this technology and analyze them
- Identify and evaluate alternative solutions or actions to avoid possible ethical problems.
- What parts of the IEEE code of ethics [3] is most relevant to the ethical issues you identified in the specific technology application that you have considered? What is missing? Propose an extension (one or several items) to [3] so that it better covers the issues you identified.
NOTE that you must make clear references to the reading material in your reflection text for it to be considered fulfilling the requirements.
NOTE: Please name your file seminar3-firstname-familyname.pdf