Author Archives: brapponotti

About brapponotti

Undergraduate at UC Berkeley, taking E125 and learning more about ethics related to engineering.

E125 Summary Reflection

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Before I took E125, I had a fairly limited understanding of what constituted engineering ethics. Still, I had an opinion of what it was. I had an understanding of engineering and ethics as well, and combining them didn’t seem to be too hard. I viewed engineering as a practical fusion of math and science for the purpose of creating new technologies or architectural structures for the benefit of humanity. And I had discussions about ethics, and how ethics differs itself from the idea of morals, in English class in high school. Ethics was very much a societal implementation of values, like codes of conduct, to help serve as a guideline for people, engineers included. Going back to what I wrote about what I hoped to gain from the class in my learning proposal:

“I hope to gain some knowledge in being able to more concretely shape my idea of what engineering is, and of what engineers do. This class will hopefully help me gain some experience as well in the ethical practices of engineering and in discussing in small groups during discussion about articles pertaining to ethics in engineering.”

Were any of these assumptions challenged or changed? Why or why not? (Refer to 
specific assignments that are in your ePortfolio.)

Looking back and reading through my learning proposal, I definitely know that my presentation and communication skills were tested. I made sure not to speak with notes to help me speak on the fly; I prepared beforehand, so I did know what I was talking about. Also, the article Alice Pawley wrote, How Engineers Define Engineering, really broadened my understanding of what engineering is. Moreover, visiting the Berkeley Museum of Art seemed to coincide with the idea described in the article. Engineering, like art, is a very broad topic: art can be functional, and like engineering, can bring about discussions about ethical issues. The aesthetics of art don’t need to be the only thing connected with engineering. Still, art isn’t really the entire purpose of engineering, nor is it the most important.

What does it mean to be an ethical engineer?

Being an ethical engineer is not simply following a code of ethics. In fact, during interview presentations, I noticed that a few people had said that their interviewee did not really use a code of ethics when being faced with an ethical decision. Mostly, they had followed their own ethical code, their moral code, if you will. The examples of the BART and the Challenger were also examples of ethical engineers trying to stand up and say that some engineering project was not safe. In fact, even if their fears were not vindicated, as in the case of the BART or the Challenger dilemmas, legitimately questioning the safety of a project is an important part of being an ethical engineer.

How does (or should) ethics fit into the larger engineering curriculum?

Ethics is involved with every design and decision in engineering, and thus, shouldn’t simply be taught as one unending chunk. It needs to be broken up and discussed regularly in engineering curriculum, just like it should be in the workplace.

What is/are the engineer’s societal role(s)? Or, what should the engineer’s role be?

Just like the case of the BART, or another case from the Ethics textbook, the case of Johan van Veen, in the section on human welfare, engineering designs can have devastating effects if they fail. The professional code of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) states that “engineers shall use their knowledge and skill for the enhancement of human welfare.” This definition, although short, gives a very fair societal role.

What is your future learning plan?

One great way to incorporate a future learning plan is to read other ethics blogs. Because engineering is built around collaboration and discussion, reading the opinions of others allows you to imbibe new perspectives of others. There may be people in specific fields focusing on nuclear engineering ethics of bio-engineering ethics, so you can diversify yourself as well. http://abutec.com/ is just an example of a link to a blog I can visit. In fact, simply reading books and listening to debates on issues not even relating to engineering can help built an ethical framework. As was stated before, ASCE states engineers should use their knowledge and skill for advancing human welfare. Thus, understanding where human welfare needs enhancing is important, and being politically aware, of local, national, and even global politics can create opportunities for social and economic benefit via the introduction of engineering projects, such as water filtration systems to poor countries where people are dying of lack of potable drinking water. These seem like lofty goals and initially they are. Discussions about ethics with friends is a lot easier and more informal, This propagates a culture of ethical discussion, which is very important for guiding us towards a more ethical frame of mindset when doing engineering, amongst other fields.

Project Personal Reflection

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As a brief summary, our group was inspired to pursue the project we did because we had interviewed professionals working in engineering fields. We thought that we could juxtapose what we had learned from these interviews with Berkeley undergraduate students pursuing research, which is very similar to the work environment of some engineers in the field today. We asked them some questions about their research and ethical challenges as well as how they would describe the atmosphere around ethical discussions with their PIs and fellow lab mates.
Reflection on it, I think it was a very good project idea. In complementing our interview project with this group project idea, I feel like we extended it, continuing the assignment that was given to us in class. It was certainly not the easiest to make the video, as our video editing skills were not the best, but hopefully the meat of the interviews, the opinions expressed by those we interviewed, would best the most important aspect. Just interviewing undergraduates was a good start, and by extension, questions raised about the practice of ethics in undergraduate research is likely to extend to graduate student research. Getting this information to the public will hopefully be a stepping stone for Berkeley faculty to prep young minds passionate for research to consider ethical challenges in their research and the ethical impacts just like they would have to in the real world.

Technology and Regulations

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Many government organizations have control over regulation. One such is the Department of Energy. Another is the EPA when pertaining to environmental concerns. Most private sector regulations are regulations that are determined less on a legalistic aspect than they are on an ethical aspect. With or without regulation, these companies need to satisfy their customers and make sure that said product is safe. Regulations from the government may add or subtract from said regulations of the private sector and are more hotly contested on a legal basis. Congressmen take initiative to change or add regulation, since they are the ones with the power to do so. However, citizens who vote in their Congressmen sort of have a responsibility to vote in people who would represent their ideas of regulation or deregulation. Everyone, thusly, has a role in this, but it is more important and with greater possibility that people in powerful positions can change and add regulation more easily than others.

Art Museum Reflection

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What resources do you think you can find in the arts that can help you in your practice or learning of engineering?

In practice, design is a very big part of engineering. Efficiency is important, but so are the aesthetical aspects of engineering as well. One such usage is symmetry, especially when dealing with the ideas of redundancy. If one system fails, then having another system that replaces that failed system can prevent a meltdown or a huge problem from occurring. Going through the art gallery, I saw various types of art. Some of it was very much avante garde, some two dimensional, and others three dimensional. The aspect of dimensionality that art covers seems to outline a process for engineering design that I believe is important. Early designs are almost always two dimensional. They are drawn on a piece of paper, sometimes crudely just for initial ideas, sometimes carefully like blueprints. However, two dimensional objects can’t really be used to much effect by humans. They need to be transformed to three dimensions, and just a two dimensional image does not capture enough information about a design. However, I think art is a very abstract concept and has more of an influence on the humanity that affects all people and doesn’t really have anything specific to say about engineering. Principals of design incorporate art, for sure, but design is just a type of art: an art of efficiency, of science. Art is still an important aspect that should be consider throughout engineering and the learning of engineering, but it should not be a driving force, but rather a catalyst for helping.

Critical Reflection #5 on Roeser

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The subject of this critical reflection article is Emotional Engineers: Toward Morally Responsible Design by Sabine Roeser. Roeser initial creates the archetype of what most people think an engineer is: a rational thinker who addresses problems in a quantitative way. She asserts that technological design is not values neutral, and in a sense she is right. The main argument of the paper, she states, is to try to convince engineers to be more reflective of the emotional aspects of their work. Such a demand of engineers is not one that is too difficult for many to at least consider. For some projects, like with the building of roller coasters and other such rides at amusement parks, humans have to ride them so they no only need to be efficient but also safe. How fast can a rollercoaster car go based on the design of the coaster? If we find that speed, we still need to realize that humans may not be able to handle such speed.

The idea of neutral design is also criticized in this piece. According to the article, even if design may try to remain neutral, we subconsciously create our own responses and thus the design has an impact on our reactions to it and may continue to do so. M.C, Nussbaum, in the article Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions, Nussbaum says that that emotions can lead us to “extend our circle of concern”, and thus change our emotional state of being. The author demands a new generation of engineers who have a sufficiently developed emotional sensitivity. The footnote on this quote brings up the topic of engineering as a “male” profession, because it is considered rational and non-emotional, while women are usually labeled “emotional”. She says that more women may see engineering as a more viable and interesting profession if engineering is turned into a softer discipline. However, trying to “feminize” engineering misses the whole point about engineering. Engineering shouldn’t need to attract more women by making itself more open to emotional involvement. That cheapens the role of the women in engineering who go into the profession because they enjoy the same things that male engineers do: math, science, problem solving, etc.

Critical Reflection #4 on Kaplan

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In this article, Kaplan addresses some of the qualitative aspects of risk (and hazard), and explaining the differences between probability and frequency that have been confused even for centuries.  However, in terms of risk, the main argument of the article establishes some very useful quantitative analyses for investigating and quantifying risk that can’t simply hold much information if simply analyzed qualitatively. It was interesting to know that I could understand at least a bit of the mathematical analysis, since from taking CS70, we addressed probability and Bayes’ Theorem. However, to the layman, everything may seem very confusing. This signifies that risk analysis is a very sophisticated and detailed field. Another very useful term in uncertainty, which is well known via Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Like probability, uncertainty comes with some very substantial mathematical backing.

One of the very important points that Kaplan also brought up involved addressing criticism of the Reactor Safety Study. The critic says that the risk analysis list is infinite and thus an analysis is never fully complete. Kaplan states, “That limitation in itself, therefore, cannot be used to argue for one branch of the decision tree over another since it applies to all branches.” One can bullet point risk and hazards involved in a project, but, as the article addressed, there will always be risk as well as hazards. However, this does not mean that such events will happen and thus frequency and probability come in to quantify the possibility of such events.

Thus, the mathematical analyses are not the most important parts of this article, it seems to me. The graphs are also there to paint a larger picture and analyze risk relationships. Graphs can pinpoint trends. The example of the risk curve graph shows a larger amount of information that simply a mean value. Average and median are such values, but they don’t present the information that a graph does.

Mid-Semester Self Evaluation

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If I were assigned a participation grade this week, I would give myself a B+. I participate a bit in lecture, but in discussion I participate a fair amount. During presentations, I try to ask at least one question for each presenter or group presentation, partly to help myself understand better but also to help the presenter to be able to answer. However, I only gave myself a B+ because I haven’t really gone above and beyond on the blogs. I don’t read and comment on enough blogs, and I think doing that would have demonstrated going above and beyond in participating in this class so far. I do arrive on time for class (Berkeley time of course, since I have a lecture in Stanley Hall that ends at 2 and I have to walk across campus to get to Mulford). I read the ethics in the news articles, though I should comment on them as well. I also try to participate in the group work. One thing I can do better in reading the textbook. I try to read what I can, but I haven’t read all the chapters as thoroughly as I should.

I think I am meaning most of the objectives I set out for in my learning proposal. The stuff I had outlined that I need to do better in hasn’t yet been fully met, so I do have some work to do. The text book has been very helpful in writing up blogs for the ethics in the news articles and critical reflections articles that were assigned. I also found the book helpful when writing up my interview reflection, even citing a few case studies from said book to try to connect my interview to what I was learning in class.

Interview Reflection

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For my interview assignment, I interviewed Robert Borrelli, who received his Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of California Berkeley. Robert Borrelli is also a professor of engineering at Diablo Valley College, where he teaches an introductory course to engineering. Said course is particularly attended by non-engineering students and contains a subsection devoted to ethics pertaining to engineering. His class teaches a learning module for ethics and is much like E125, but scaled down.

Getting started, I asked the professor how he himself became interested in engineering. He told me that he get into engineering because he was good at math and science as a kid. Moreover, he enjoys solving technical problems. This explanation, albeit brief, seemed consistent with the Pawley article we read. Engineers seemed to be labeled as those who were good at math and science, but as opposed to scientists, used this knowledge for application and problem solving purposes. The answer was given possibly because as kids, that’s the very straightforward description of what engineering is, and more subtle or nuanced definitions of engineering that the critical reflection #2 article had addressed. He also didn’t mention his parents at all, unlike some of the kids in class did when in lecture, we were asked why each of us got into engineering. Professor Borrelli also added that he had attended a private engineering college as an undergraduate and thus he had to declare his major early on. This is of course different than our situations, but it shows the confidence he had in wanting to pursue engineering as a career.  But it wasn’t just general engineering. He had selected specifically nuclear engineering going in.

As a follow up, I asked him what his job entails. He said that he was a part of a review board for ARPA-E. ARPA-E stands for the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, which, according to its website, “is an innovative and collaborative government agency that brings together America’s best and brightest scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs.” Professor Borrelli stated that on the board, he reviewed proposals for nuclear energy projects and determined whether ARPA-E could fund them. He added that with funding agencies, this was a common process. While money doesn’t seem to be something that could be related to ethics, but construction isn’t free, or cheap. Many times, money can be a deciding factor in how projects are built, changed, and updated. The suicide bridge example is one such thing. Another is the Ford Pinto example, wherein Ford needed to put an inexpensive car on the market. Thus the Pinto was rushed through without considering all the ethical and hazardous outcomes. People have a tendency to disregard money when it comes to ethics, but it’s probably one of the most important and consistent elements of engineering projects. If money were no problem, engineers could add a lot more safety features. Of course, money is a tangible item, so it’s availability can dramatically affect the outcome and design of a project.

The professor could not discuss specific proposals, as he had signed a non-disclosure agreement, but ARPA-E had a policy wherein if there was a conflict of interest in a review, they had to leave while the review was being recommended. But because the proposals with reviewed within the context of ARPA-E’s mission, reviewing was easy. This was where review processes are made simpler by having defined goals and guidelines. This doesn’t mean that reviews need be followed exactly to the letter, but having such goals, just like a company’s code of ethics, can help with organization.

Interviewing Professor Borrelli had certainly been an informative experience. He had given me some valuable information that I thought I was able to bring back into the context of this class and piece together an important aspect of engineering and the ethics that pertains to it.

Ethics in the News Reflection

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The Article to which this reflection is about:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/era-memory-engineering-has-arrived/

I was initially attracted to the article when I was searching on recent news regarding science surrounding the brain. Because we still know very little about the brain (compared to other parts of your body) and how important the brain is for decision-making and our own morals, the ethics around how we study the brain is important. The brain is the organ that really makes us human, and is the reason why we have such dominance over most of the animals on the Earth. Memories are an aspect of our brain that seems almost ethereal, even though memory is controlled and regulated by neurons, physical elements of the brain. Thus, when I read the headline for this article, I was automatically interested. The idea of manipulating memories seems like it’s straight out of a science fiction movie, and to think that it could be plausible is always eye-catching.

Ethically, the article brings up issues of recreating peoples’ precious memories that have been lost by age or disease. While not specifically mentioned, Alzheimer’s is one of the diseases that could be treated with these new technologies. Moreover, based on the article’s content, I thought that memory engineering could be used for therapy and for treatment for sociopaths and psychopaths. The ethics of manipulating the brain can be that the brain makes up the person and changing the brain can technically change a person.

Being able to change memories seemed to bring me back to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. In it, characters can take pills to keep them from being too emotionally distraught. Basically, they can keep from experiencing negative or difficult emotions. Likewise, if memories can be inserted and deleted so easily, then experiences and actual memories seem cheaper as a result. Someone else had brought up Brave New World during my leading the class discussion, so I know I’m not alone in my thinking.

While memory engineering certainly has some great possibilities for therapy and treatment of individuals who have suffered traumatic events, it is a dangerous technology. We are not quite at the level where we can erase people’s memories with the touch of a button like in the Men in Black movie series, but the nefarious possibilities are still there. Ultimately, people should give consent if they want their own memories altered. It’s their body.

Critical Reflection #3: Conversing with History’s Philosophers

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You are at a dinner party with Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Immanuel Kant, Henry Ford, Aristotle, Carol Gilligan, and a couple more of your favorite philosophers and intellectuals. You bring up in conversation one of the topics that was discussed in your discussion section for the E125 class. How will you explain this topic and the ethical issues that emerge from it to Jeremy, John, Immanuel, Henry, Aristotle, Carol and the other people who are present at the party? How will they respond?

If I were talking to Jeremy Bentham about manipulating memories, I would tell him about how

In terms of utilitarianism, Jeremy will most likely respond favorably. The ethical issues that would arise would most likely revolve around using memories for psychological therapy and treatment, as well as for pleasure. Because memories are a personal object, it only seems to affect one person. Thus, if the memory engineering can be beneficial to that one person, then it is moral according to Bentham.

John Stuart Mill would seem to agree to a certain extent. Because memories are exclusive to each person, by the freedom principle, people should be allowed to manipulate their own memories if they want. However, he may bring up some concern about how memory engineering might be used to treat sociopaths and psychopaths.

Kant may not be able to find much wrong. Because memory engineering is so new, there aren’t very many norms that could be brought up when talking about this. However, on the ethical issues, but he wouldn’t agree that memory engineering to include happiness or pleasure are not the driving force for the morality of such actions but rather the duties involved.

Henry Ford seemed to be absolutely ecstatic about the idea.  The ability to implant memories can help to artificially craft people’s memories, specifically how to build a car for example. Typical of his Fordist philosophy, he sees the idea of being able to manipulate memories as a step to change man’s brain to contain more information, just like a robot.

Aristotle sees memory engineering as a possibility to instill memories into people as just the start of what might be possible: to implant virtues into people. By giving children especially these memories, the brain can help guide them, along with their moral superiors, to be more virtuous: that is, more honest, kind, intelligent, for example.

Carol Gilligan, however, seemed really antithetical to the whole idea. She was worried that falsifying memories would cheapen actual experiences, and the concept of “walking in another person’s shoes” could imply be as easy as taking an injection of a memory supplement. Thus, the moral wasn’t really learned but was manufactured.