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Engineering Ethics & Bias Awareness

I’ll be following up with the undergraduate Tandon professors I contacted to obtain syllabi for their ethics/philosophy courses. In the meantime, I’m working to simulate this Engineering Ethics Activity from Utah State University and incorporate elements from smaller exercises that I’ve found. The issue I’m currently running into is that the target audiences for almost all of the activities I’ve found have been for young children (behavioral studies) or college students (psychology students). Hopefully, the Tandon syllabi can help me to target the conversation at a higher learning level.

Our visit to the Sim Center made me think a lot about how deliberate and intentional the design process for a learning space is. I realized this several times throughout the tour, but particularly when we encountered the multiple kinds of mannequins (and mannequin parts/limbs) or when we visited the test patient rooms. I thought about the psychology behind the testing process and the construction of the two sides- one with a tinted window for professors to watch students interact with the actors and another for the students to enter/exit from. I wish we could have sat in on a session with actual medical students to get a better idea of how this actually is aiding the students.  It certainly would have enriched our experiences. All in all, it was enjoyable, and it was nice to leave Tisch for a bit!

In regards to my project- I’ve set up interviews with 4 folks so far (a mix of higher ed grads and non-higher ed grads). I’ve also decided to try incorporating Kyle’s suggestion on the IDM’s program floor at the BxMC.

As per our in-class discussion last week, I have decided to condense my solution to one that measures short-term awareness, not long-term introspection. Instead of having a full course, I’m working to develop an exercise that can push entry-level engineering students to see the effect of bias in products.

I’ve begun reaching out to professors of similar courses at NYU Tandon to review their syllabi, relevant coursework and activities. I’ve added the descriptions for the two courses below.

 

HU-UY 347 | LA-UY 143 | PL-UY 2064 | PL-UY 2144 Ethics and Technology
This course considers how technology shapes and patterns—and is shaped and patterned by—human activities, from a moral point of view. This course focuses on how the technologically textured world changes human life, individually, socially and culturally, for better or worse. The course considers several views of technology and several ethical theories for evaluating technology. The course explains the structures of change and transformation and develops critical forms of thought, so that students can understand, evaluate, appreciate and criticize technological development.

PL-UY 2204W Philosophy of Technology
This survey of prominent approaches to the philosophy of technology asks: What are the philosophical problems presented by technology? How does technology influence ethics, politics and society? What is the relation of philosophy of technology to the traditional branches of philosophy (aesthetics, epistemology, metaphysics)?

I used the design of MAGNET to remodel ITP. Placing staff and administration offices on one side and learning environments (classrooms and workspace) on the other helps to separate activity and improves navigation. Concentrating the hardware spaces (Physical Computing & Shop) on one end of the floor reduces the “skill intimidation” faced by students entering spaces with unfamiliar equipment. One issue in this redesign is it doesn’t promote “spontaneous ideation” that the open spaces in MAGNET do.

 

ITP Floor Plan, 2015

 

So far, I’ve identified my higher ed question/problem and my target audience: How does one increase civic literacy amongst American adults?

I’m now in the process of developing a set method for researching this group and how this question impacts them. As with most research, one begins with a single question and soon begins to identify several others that must be explored before addressing the original question.

One of those questions is “what’s the distinction between civic literacy and information acquisition?” This is valuable question because it forces one to consider the ways in which the two could be considered the same thing and the challenges in distinguishing between them. My goal is not just to attain information but to retain and apply it to one’s life- to live a life where one is engaging with and actively participating in the political happenings in one’s local (and not-so-local) community. For example, how do I design for my user in a manner that will allow them to understand whether/how/why their vote impacts the results of an election? The goal is to eliminate the “whether/how/why” in their minds- to provide them with design that allows them to identify a clear answer to their inquiries.

 

I have to interview people and I’ve determined who I should interview. My interview pool has to consist of a group of people that reflect all the different kinds of people that have and continue to go through the process of learning things in the USA. Below is a rough brainstorm of those groups:

-Self-proclaimed informed or “woke” people (Formally educated Americans and non-formally educated Americans)

-Non-Americans/Immigrants

 

And some questions I’m planning to ask:

How do you consume info?

How did you learn about XYZ? Where from?

Why is XYZ important to learn to you?

 

All of my education thus far has been through the United States Education System. Between Minnesota, Texas, and New York, I have not seen any drastic differences that compare with international systems. One of my good friends, however, marks some interesting adjustments between his experiences in Turkey and America.

Paul attended Eastern Mediterranean University in Northern Cyprus for his undergraduate career and New York University for his graduate. His three biggest differences were the community, financial support and opportunity. His engagement was dependent on the individual help he could receive from his professors on specific problems and subjects. The environment was mostly welcoming, despite the language barrier. Some administrators were not used to dealing with people unlike them or accepting different cultures. The community was fairly westernized though there were certain ways of addressing professors that were different than that of the Unites States or his home in Nigeria.

It’s hard to get scholarships everywhere. Most are offered to undergraduates over graduates. Fortunately, Paul was granted a fairly generous, but the strains of Northern Cyprus’s small economy were apparent. It was a small island in Turkey and an embargo at that. In Turkey, there didn’t appear to be many opportunities outside of the classroom. Paul didn’t feel that the small jobs available wouldn’t help to elevate his career. Looking back, he believes even those positions could have offered important lessons. When moving to New York, however, he had already known of America as the “Land of Opportunity.” He came with a sense of urgency with what he wanted and the best way to kickstart his own “American Dream.” With New York’s bigger population and economy, Paul opened himself up to every opportunity that came his way. Today, he believes the drawback is the burden of opening yourself up to too many things that don’t move you forward.