ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US
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Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US
#2Disgusting development and a horrible example of how destructive technology can be.
This reinforces my belief that engineers and scientist need to go through mandatory ethics classes throughout their education.
Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US
#3Disgusting development and a horrible example of how destructive technology can be. This reinforces my belief that engineers and scientist need to go through mandatory ethics classes throughout their education.
Who gets to determine what is considered ethical?
Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US
#4Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US
#5Disgusting development and a horrible example of how destructive technology can be. This reinforces my belief that engineers and scientist need to go through mandatory ethics classes throughout their education.
Who gets to determine what is considered ethical?
In general, the individual engineers do. The point of ethics training is to recognize that you have ethical obligations that extend past your job responsibilities, and that when your ethics conflict with your work tasks, it's not your ethics that should compromise.
For some of us, that might mean not working on a project that we could reasonably foresee would result in the deportation of children who don't speak Spanish and have only ever known this country to some foreign country. For others, it might mean not working on projects that assist women in obtaining an abortion.
Obviously, there's no "class" that settles the differing ethical boundaries we all have (though better ethics education would allow us to recognize the huge subset of ethics that we tend to share). The point is to tune in to our own ethics and not let the noise of professional life occlude them.
As a field, I think we've allowed ourselves to simultaneously believe that we're doing the most important work that's being done this century, while at the same time believing that we're powerless to shape the outcomes of our labor. But that's not true at all: if you believe the former, then it's likely that we have immense power over the latter! So, I think the point of the root comment on this thread is well taken.
Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US
#6Yet another piece of evidence that the US is turning into an authoritarian state - as, to be fair, others do too (especially China!), but the US have the unique advantage of being the technologically most advanced civilization.
In earlier times, when situations got too authoritarian, there were rebellions and revolution. With the level of militarization in police and military and the abilities made possible by today's technology (the Gestapo or the Stasi would have done anything for this kind of power), it is very well possible that a revolution might simply be made impossible or crushed before it even begins, as you can simply single out and eliminate potential "leaders" based on AI analysis of what people do... and what people think, as they post it on Twitter, Facebook or their own "private" cloud space.
In addition, the future of AI is already showing its first signs - and governments around the world have not shown any interest in planning for the inevitable millions that will lose their jobs or for the social unrest caused by this. Quite to the contrary: governments and right-wing parties are "looking back in time" and promising their citizens that they will bring back the "good old times" and snatching up the votes of the Frustrated Old White Men - and are very successful at this.
Scary indeed.
Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US
#7The Frog slowly boils.
Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US
#8Disgusting development and a horrible example of how destructive technology can be. This reinforces my belief that engineers and scientist need to go through mandatory ethics classes throughout their education.
That was actually a part of my mechanical engineering degree. We had almost a half semester spent in one class on engineering ethics. Definitely no such thing covered during my master's degree in computer science.
Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US
#9Disgusting development and a horrible example of how destructive technology can be. This reinforces my belief that engineers and scientist need to go through mandatory ethics classes throughout their education.
I am sure a lot of people working on this stuff think they are doing something to secure their country and this is the ethical thing to do.
Re: ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US
#10Disgusting development and a horrible example of how destructive technology can be. This reinforces my belief that engineers and scientist need to go through mandatory ethics classes throughout their education.
Who gets to determine what is considered ethical?
As a first approximation, it would be beneficial to convince people of the concept‘s existence, and to get them to start questioning the implications of the work they do.
As it is, too many in the tech community are willing to defend anything with arguments such as „if I don’t, someone else will“ or „technology is ethically neutral, it is the use...“.