Ethics & Responsible Engineering

Ethics & Responsible Engineering

Firmware and electronics you ship have consequences for the people who live with the device, and a professional engineer takes responsibility for that impact. This subject covers the ACM Code of Ethics (public interest, avoiding harm, honesty, privacy), plus duty of care that is specific to physical systems: moving parts, electrical safety, sensor data, and reflecting honestly on dilemmas in your own project. It is about professional judgement, not the technical safety controls covered in Designing & Realising.

Starting Points

• ACM. (2018). ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.
• ACM. (1997). Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice.
• IEEE. IEEE Code of Ethics.
• LinkedIn Learning. Responsible AI: Principles and Practical Applications.

Key Points

• You identify at least three relevant principles from the ACM or IEEE code of ethics and connect each to a concrete situation in your studio project.
• You analyse a feature of your device (actuator, camera, location data, always-on sensing) for potential harm or exclusion and propose a safer or more inclusive approach.
• You reflect on at least one ethical dilemma you encountered during the studio (e.g. collecting sensor data, running motors near people, shipping an untested prototype) and explain the trade-offs you considered.
• You explain what privacy as a design value means for embedded devices and show at least one decision where privacy or data minimisation was considered at design time.
• You describe electrical and mechanical duty of care at a basic level (isolation, current limits, emergency stop) and mention one way you reduced risk in your project.