Understanding the Consequences of Unethical Engineering

🧠 The Cultural Costs of Ignoring AI Ethics (A Digital Anthropologist’s Call to Engineers & Builders) Everyone’s talking about AI’s speed. But no one’s asking: what is it speeding past? Here’s the truth: 🤖 AI isn’t neutral. It doesn’t just reflect data — it reflects us. Our histories. Our biases. Our blind spots. When we ignore AI ethics, the consequences aren’t just technical. They’re cultural. And they’re already here: 🔻 Facial recognition that misidentifies minorities 🔻 Predictive policing that targets vulnerable communities 🔻 Hiring algorithms that quietly filter out women 🔻 Mental health bots that misread distress signals These aren’t bugs. They’re systemic values — scaled and automated. And when we treat AI as just a technical problem, we build tools that: — Deepen inequality — Erase marginalized voices — Prioritize efficiency over empathy — Reward speed over safety — Scale bias under the banner of “optimization” But here’s what digital anthropology knows: 💡 Every algorithm is a cultural object. It has authors. It has assumptions. It has power. We can't separate code from culture. We can’t solve for the future with yesterday’s blind spots. Because ethics isn’t a checkbox. It’s infrastructure. It’s design. It’s trust. 🛠️ Ignoring ethics now becomes tomorrow’s cultural tech debt. — 🔍 I work with engineering teams, eco-tech innovators, and AI labs to decode the cultural impact of emerging systems— and help design tools that are not just technically brilliant but human-centered, inclusive, and built to last. 👉 Want to future-proof your AI ethically and culturally? Let’s talk. #AIethics #DigitalAnthropology #ResponsibleAI #TechForGood #CultureAndCode

🔥 A prison fire in Chile killed dozens. A supermarket fire in Paraguay ended with the same outcome. In both cases, blame fell on individuals at the scene. Guards were accused of failing to act. A store manager was held responsible for keeping people inside. But as fire safety engineer Jose Torero explained at a National Academy of Engineering and Committee on Human Rights workshop, the deeper causes were built into the #systems. Poor design, hazardous materials, and weak regulations shaped the outcome. In Chile, overcrowding and facility conditions left prison staff unable to rescue those trapped. In Paraguay, outdated safety codes allowed flammable insulation and locked exits. People had no way to escape. These instances show that #safety isn’t automatic. It depends on #engineering decisions, competent oversight, and a commitment to protect lives before such emergencies occur. "Issues at the Intersection of Engineering and Human Rights," the just-out proceedings from The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, explores how choices in #infrastructure, #design, and #education influence dignity, access, and protection. Some takeaways: 🔧 Safety is technical, but it’s also political. Fires, floods, and failures often trace back to decisions about what gets built, where corners are cut, and who is expected to cope. 🏚️ Disparities are often engineered. People living with unsafe water, poor roads, or weak buildings are often living with someone else’s decisions. 📐 Ethics alone aren’t enough. Most engineering curricula treat human rights as a side note, if at all. The result is professionals are increasingly trained to solve problems without asking whose problem it is. ♿ Design reaches further than intended. A wheelchair ramp helps more than wheelchair users. Good engineering has ripple effects. 🧠 Communities bring more than stories. They bring knowledge. When engineers treat them as vital input, the results are better for everyone. 🧭 Human rights point to what matters: who’s affected, who decides, who’s left out. 📘 Read more at: https://lnkd.in/ezkT8dZJ 👥Thanks to the crew: Leading: Charlie Bolden, Jr., Betsy Popken, Davis Chacon-Hurtado, Glen Daigger, Wesley Harris, Deb Niemeier. Contributing: Theresa Harris, Maya Elizabeth Carrasquillo, Tyler Giannini, Shareen Hertel, Muhammad Hamid Zaman, Bernard Amadei, Mira Olson, Shirley Ann Jackson, Darshan Karwat, Carlton Waterhouse, Eric Buckley, Bethany Hoy, Kimberly L. Jones, Amy Smith, John Kleba, Michael Ashley Stein, Jay Aronson, Julie Owono, José Torero, Lindsey Andersen, Alice Agogino, Tamara E. Brown, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Katie Shay. Staffing: David Butler, Rebecca Everly, Casey Gibson, Ana Deros, Hoang-Nam Vu, Chessie Briggs, and Joe Alper.

Risk is a requirement of business; but it seems money wins over preparing for (human) risk. All risk is not equal. An engineering lesson on the nonlinear risk within designs, advancements, and builds. Many engineers wear an iron ring we received at our oath ceremony around graduatiom. We were loosely told it “symbolizes” the material of a bridge that failed twice during construction and claimed lives. The ring is to be worn on the little finger of our working hand to remind us of our responsibility that our actions have consequences against lives; and also more generally as a visible reminder of the oath of “integrity and ethics” that we’ve taken. >>Engineers are trained to design things to generally be used by the public, their safety is our goal. When things go catastrophically wrong, we have to understand how to harness chaos in our designs for as long as possible - to save as many lives as possible. >>As engineers, we learn vast bodies of knowledge across many disciplines such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, materials, and structures - and linear and nonlinear events like seismic, loading, thermodynamics, and fluid dynamics. And we have to apply that accordingly. Each discipline is slightly different in focus. >>In our labs we study limits and phenomenon against designs - and push all of these limits up to and through failures and study failures with great intent. We quickly understand why designs crucially matter. And we quickly learn there is a sweet spot to engineering designs - meaning over engineering holds the same catastrophic risk failures as under engineering. YOU MUST UNDERSTAND BOTH RISKS. And we have to importantly understand our integrity and ethics, against all of this training, may be pushed by others - capitalizing, business, and money is a funny thing. As I quickly reflected on my career journeys and inventions - my parting thought is this: In **any** design, but especially advancements or inventions, it is critical to understand the good - balanced by where failures can occur and how nonlinear events can creep into **any design.** Nonliear is a function of this entire world. This world is more complex than we’d like to think. And one must harness the good and the risk, simultaneously. It’s not just about risk to capture value. And this extreme risk really dances in within two main areas: -during any advancements, integrations, or builds. -when money and optimization drives decisions. >>It’s easy to take down the (almost) entire technology system of the world during an integration build. Leaving vast critical infrastructures dangling. This was a catastrophic event. >>Just as easy as it is to collapse a bridge (twice) without understanding the consequences of cantilever builds - by discounting engineering designs and focusing on money. >>Just as easy as it is to leave astronauts stranded in space. Risk (and the consequences of lives) in business is important to understand. All risk is not equal.