Last month, engineering students were notified that completion of the course “ENGR 4501 –  Engineering Ethics and Sustainability” is no longer required for their graduation due to the closure of the Engineering Communications Center (ECC). However, in our rapidly advancing technological age, it is more important than ever for engineering students to engage with ethical thinking during their education. Because of this importance, the McKelvey School of Engineering should reinstate an ethics course requirement for its students.

Innovation has always operated on the frontlines of society’s ethical challenges. New technology stewards progress but can also introduce new ways to enact harm. For example, humanity has undoubtedly benefited from the invention of modern medicine. But would the world be better off if engineers had never invented chemical warfare or nuclear weapons? 

There is no direct answer to a question like that, and this complexity is precisely why engineering students must take ethics courses. Through learning ethical theories and testing their application to case studies, the next generation of innovators will be inspired to think critically about what they create.

Our budding age of artificial intelligence (AI) makes equipping our up-and-coming engineers with ethical mindsets especially important. Prior to the public release of ChatGPT in late 2022, AI may have felt irrelevant in the daily lives of people outside the tech or engineering world. Not even four years later, hundreds of millions of people use the technology daily.  

This “AI boom” has meant that its ethical implications are being sidelined as companies prioritize capitalizing on demand. Take OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, as an example: in February, the company eliminated their “Mission Alignment Team,” which ensured that their work on “artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.” And earlier that month, Zoë Hitzig publicly resigned from her position at the company, citing fears about OpenAI’s increasing use of coercive advertising. In this way, the ECC’s closure represents wider trends relating to the deprioritization of ethical thinking around today’s top innovation – AI. 

You could argue that one ethics course requirement would hardly inspire students to reject their job offers from weapons manufacturers or other questionable companies. If one is not socialized to care about the ethics of their work, perhaps a one-credit class in undergrad would not make a difference. But do states repeal driver’s education requirements because some people will drive recklessly no matter what? It is inevitable that some students will not care about their engineering ethics class, but the lessons will still resonate with others.

Still, the idea that the engineering ethics requirement was ineffective demonstrates larger issues in the way our society understands the purpose of higher education. With the rise of pre-professional culture in universities across the country, students may not view college as an opportunity for transformational personal growth. Instead, higher education is understood as a transactional step to one’s future job. 

Perhaps there is no wonder, then, that McKelvey deprioritized ethics courses in their curriculum. 

But school is not just a degree for your resume or a place to obtain technical skills. College is an opportunity to develop your values and worldview, and graduation requirements across all disciplines should reflect that premise.

Part of McKelvey’s mission statement is to make a “positive impact on the local community, the country, and the world.” McKelvey must remember their stated commitment to ethical responsibility amidst the budgetary constraints that triggered an end to the ethics class requirement for their students. This could look like preventing the “Engineering Ethics and Sustainability” class from being cancelled with the closure of the ECC or even shifting the requirement into the College of Arts & Sciences. At this point, anything would be better than our current alternative – absolutely nothing.