I teach engineering ethics and while the example NSPE cases[1] skew more toward civil engineering, there are some cases relevant to software and computer engineers. But I find it helpful to draw examples from current events.
For example, use of facial recognition tech in policing. TV and movies give the impression that a satellite can identify the perp with 99.4% accuracy if you yell "enhance" enough times. Meanwhile, in reality we're happy when our classifier can tell a "3" from a "B" in a real image.
There's also the decades-long tale of the software bug that put some U.K. sub-postmasters in prison, bankrupted others, and caused a few to commit suicide.
It's a 6-week course. Each week, students respond to a prompt about an aspect of engineering ethics. The main task is to link real life examples to concepts from a professional code of ethics (we use the NSPE code[1]). NSPE also has anonymized and searchable "case studies"[2] with examples of how to apply this approach of "summarize the case and find the relevant parts of the Code of Ethics which apply here".
In a typical course, I ask them to use real-life examples such as these:
- Snowden leaks (privacy and consent of the governed)
- Henrietta Lacks (ethics in biotechnology and patient rights)
- Roger Boisjoly (whistleblowing)
- Volkswagen emissions scandal (environmental consequences)
After 4-5 of these drills, they research a case on their own and present about it for a group project. Class discussions dive into questions like "what would you do differently in this situation?" or "what if it was your family?" and "how would the consequences have been different if X instead of Y?"
I try to emphasize that most situations don't have a single obvious ethically correct choice. It's more important for students to learn that codes of ethics exist, and that they can treat them as a decision-making framework.
It's a single one-term course in most universities I believe, but engineering ethics is a required subject for ABET-accredited (the standard in the US) engineering degrees.
I was not required to take such a course, but it did exist in our catalog.
I suspect the main requirement was actually fulfilled by a ~week or two in the intro course, where we talked about Therac-25 and maybe another disaster or two.
For example, use of facial recognition tech in policing. TV and movies give the impression that a satellite can identify the perp with 99.4% accuracy if you yell "enhance" enough times. Meanwhile, in reality we're happy when our classifier can tell a "3" from a "B" in a real image.
[1] https://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/ethics-resources/board...