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Ethical Engineering: Tabletop Exercise

Wednesday, September 16, 2020 (Central Time) — 2:45PM - 3:30PM

Any responsible engineering project must include a discussion of the ethical consequences of building and deploying a potentially world-changing capability - but are engineers adequately equipped to have these conversations and make these decisions? As Palantir employees with responsibilities in the privacy, civil liberties, and ethics space, we have seen first-hand that academics, advocates, and industry technologists struggle to engage each other on these issues in a constructive way. Too often, critical discussions about the effects of technology are reduced to dueling press statements and/or vitriolic exchanges on social media. This workshop uses a hypothetical scenario based on our real-world experience to challenge participants to see an ethical dilemma from different perspectives and collaborate to make a difficult organizational decision. We hope to leave participants with a greater appreciation for the complexity of the issues that will confront them in the course of their careers as well as better equipping them to be more effective advocates for the ethical application of technology as they join the workforce.

Panelists:
John Grant, Molly Cinnamon, Paula Kift