What is the problem you’re trying to solve?
Ethical development through user-centered design is not promoted in many fields of higher education, primarily engineering programs. Most of these teaching environments do not challenge students to think about their moral responsibilities as innovators. They are rarely asked to ponder the question, “What does it mean to be responsible for the next century of human interaction and productivity?”
I. Take a stab at framing it as a design question.
How can we develop a moral foundation for budding “makers” and their lasting impact in society?
II. Now state the ultimate impact you’re trying to have.
- Encourage humans to help understand humans by enhancing ethical literacy.
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Engage moral discussions by exploring existing ideas and present questions about different contexts, perspectives, and application
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Review concepts, morals, and opposition that may be personal, local or systematic
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Offer “unbiased” consideration of topics that presents multiple perspectives
III. What are some possible solutions to your problem?
- Artificial Intelligence Bot: provides individual conversation with different arguments to base your decisions
- Develops map of user’s mind by storing ideas and conversations to best understand interests and perspectives
- Share articles and supplementary information based on conversations
- Not: a logistic assistant that self-develops with the goal of improving knowledge and assistance
- Introductory Innovation Ethics Course: pushes students to simulate the long-term impact of innovation on specific societies
- Model UN Format: each student represents as a member of a certain community (i.e. nationally, systematically, locally), with a given identity and set of values/priorities – must then come together to evaluate their impact from a given product/service/innovation
IV. Finally, write down some of the context and constraints that you’re facing.
- Audience of “makers:” students currently building knowledge about careers involving product development and interaction (i.e engineers, technologists, marketers/advertisers, researchers)
- Scope & Relevance: education, political and socioeconomic views, news literacy, identity (cultural, gender, sexual, international), medical health (mental, physical, self-help), ideation and entrepreneurship
- Constraints
- No Generic Moral Foundation: cannot tell students what to think, but how to develop ideas without being limited or blinded by their identities or backgrounds
- Personal Triggers: telling someone that a specific part of their history might affect their work can ignite large personal and communication issues
- Reducing Conformity: conversations focused on a diverse set of topics can older be covered in-depth with an equally diverse group of students
- Technological & Efficiency Constraints
- AI is very cost intensive when developing and testing – cataloged data is not always easy to access (I can’t go make a moral development bot with Google’s data.)
- New curriculum and untraditional course formats are difficult to get approved.
V. Does your original question need a tweak? Try again.
I wasn’t able to quickly develop five solutions to my problem, so it may be too broad to cover all of its aspects. If I specify the audience to strictly engineering students, I can include the solutions below. The question now becomes: How can we develop a moral foundation for engineering students and their lasting impact in society?
- Requiring senior design projects to prove the use of user-centered design and the possible effects of the student’s identity and background on the product presented
- Offering scholarships and financial support to those who prove/promote moral literacy
- Real-World Competitions: use students to solve local problems that would be irrelevant to them otherwise