Engineering ethics education and artificial intelligence

Abstract

As artificial intelligence (AI) begins to permeate all engineering disciplines and curricula, engineers must be introduced to knowledge and skills to enable them to be responsible in engaging with AI. This chapter considers engineers as potential ethical actors in the AI value chain, whether they are users of AI tools or (more importantly) designers, assemblers, or developers of AI agents and systems. This chapter overviews core ongoing conversations in AI ethics that engineers should be aware of and critically examines human-centric aspects of AI ethics – including issues of fairness, safety, transparency, human agency, sustainability, and the necessity for regulatory frameworks. In addition to typical engineering ethics education methods, the chapter presents a range of practice-based experiential methods to help engineers develop practical skills in the ethical evaluation of AI systems and responsible design approaches adapted to AI. The chapter concludes by elucidating how AI can serve as a tool for teaching ethics and, as these approaches are not without risks, by critically analyzing the ethics of the approaches.

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