Semester Archives - Page 2 of 30 - Viterbi Conversations in Ethics

Featured Spring 2025 Volume 8 Issue 1

Open, Upright, and True, Despite Temptation

In an ever-evolving technological landscape, defining the ideal engineer is complex. The role of an engineer is not merely to innovate, for their responsibilities go beyond their field of study. Certain attributes form the foundation of a proficient engineer. These virtues, integrity, authenticity, and open-mindedness, can guide an engineer in developing their moral compass, which is an essential asset in practice. As servants to society, engineers should resist the temptation to exploit new technologies and remain true to themselves, exemplifying respectful attributes in the workplace. The future of engineering remains obscure due to the rapid pace of technological development. In such moments, it is crucial to remember why the role of an engineer is invaluable in the first place: to make the world a better place.

Featured Spring 2025 Volume 8 Issue 1

The Building Blocks of an Ethical Engineer: Curiosity, Discernment, and Collaborative Spirit

Amanda Akrawi February 23, 2025 Collaborative Spirit Curiosity Discernment Dreamliner Ethical Engineer Mars Rover

Engineers must embody a unique blend of traits that empower them to address the complex challenges in their field. The cultivation of curiosity, discernment, and a collaborative spirit equips engineers with specific skills necessary to contribute innovative solutions to the world. Curiosity pushes them to lend their expertise and time to discovery. Discernment allows engineers to select design characteristics and objectively evaluate flaws to ensure that their creations align with their ethical responsibilities. A collaborative spirit helps engineers expand their perspectives, supplement gaps in their knowledge, optimize design results, and ensure the best possible outcome for a project. These traits, along with the necessary ethical background, must be integrated into engineering curriculums to shape a sustainable future for generations to come.

Featured Spring 2025 Volume 8 Issue 1

The Virtues of Engineering

Ayush Agarwal February 23, 2025 Curiosity Ethical Engineer Growth Mindset Humility NVIDIA Patience

Engineers are tasked with improving everyday life with our technologies. This is a tremendous responsibility. Our work touches the lives of almost all individuals. To fulfill this responsibility, we must imbue certain virtues into our character to ensure our creations are virtuous. Thus, to be a virtuous engineer one must possess the traits of patience, humility, and curiosity.

Spring 2025 Weekly News Profile

Preserving the Past: AI in Indigenous Language Preservation

Mo Jiang February 21, 2025 AI Indigenous Communities Language Preservation

Recent breakthroughs in AI have expanded its use to translating endangered Indigenous languages. While it has promising preservation potential, these language technologies highlight the ethical scruples of using AI in cultural preservation. Careful attention is needed to implement AI preservation efforts that respect the sovereignty and cultural values of Indigenous communities.

Spring 2025 Weekly News Profile

Quantum 2.0— The Catalyst for a Cybersecurity Revolution

Mary Karapetyan February 14, 2025 Cybersecurity Quantum Computing

Quantum computing is an emerging technology that leverages the principles of quantum mechanics to increase computational speed. Transitioning from theoretical research to industry, it has the possibility to propel research. While its power is promising, it poses risks to cybersecurity.

Featured Spring 2025 Weekly News Profile

CDC Censorship: Engineers to the Rescue of Public Health Data

Janessi Diaz February 7, 2025 CDC Censorship NIH Public Health

A slurry of executive orders has led to a massive purging of public health information from the CDC and other federal websites. Thankfully, data-hoarding Redditors have come to the rescue by posting any information they had managed to salvage from these websites. As engineers, if we have the skill set we should follow suit and help with any effort to make this important data accessible to those who need it.

Spring 2025 Weekly News Profile

Fossil Fuels vs. Renewable Energy: How to Power the Tech Industry

Rachel Pak February 3, 2025 AI Climate Change Fossil Fuels renewable energy

After taking office, President Donald Trump promised to increase coal combustion to generate power needed for AI data centers. However, new coal plants take time to fire up and are not suitable sources of backup power. Therefore, natural gas and geothermal energy offer the most likely solution to the rising electricity needs of the tech industry.

Spring 2025 Weekly News Profile

Gemini 2025: The Implications of Language Model Arm Race

Mo Jiang January 24, 2025 AI safety Gemini Google Rapid AI Deployment

Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai aims to reach 500 million users for Gemini by the end of 2025. However, both corporate transparency and the current regulatory frameworks struggle to keep up with AI’s rapid deployment. This has prompted a need for engineers to define a balance between responsible development and rapid deployment.

Fall 2024 Weekly News Profile

Digital Doppelgangers: The Ethical Minefield of AI-Powered Digital Twins

Mo Jiang December 10, 2024 AI in healthcare Data Security and Regulation Digital Twins

Microsoft’s Azure recently introduced AI-powered digital twins that can independently make medical decisions. The technology raises serious concerns over AI’s role in healthcare due to challenges in model confidence and real-time data integration. In healthcare, studies have shown that digital twins can improve cardiac surgery decisions, despite the risk of undermining clinicians’ judgment. Security challenges are significant and current counter-measures have flaws. The future of digital twins hinges on balancing innovation with regulation, ensuring they augment rather than replace medical expertise.

Fall 2024 Weekly News Profile

Uranus Isn’t Actually That Weird: New Research Suggests Potential for Life on the Distant Planet

Rachel Pak November 23, 2024 Aerospace NASA Uranus

When Voyager 2 became the first and only mission to fly by Uranus in 1986, the data collected by the probe defined the way astronomers understood the ice giant for the next 40 years. However, a new study published suggests Voyager 2 just happened to zoom by the distant planet on a particularly weird day. These findings mean it might be easier for future missions to search for oceans beneath the surface of Uranus’ moons. This study reminds us that not only are we constantly making new discoveries, but that discoveries we considered facts are ever changing.

Podcast

Podcast Spring 2025 Spring 2025 VCE Podcast

Virtue Ethics: Cultivating Moral Character in a Modern World

VCE March 8, 2025

Hosted by Aryan Shah with guest Branden leong This podcast explores the role of virtue ethics in engineering, emphasizing how virtues like compassion, integrity, and…

Podcast Spring 2025 Spring 2025 VCE Podcast

AR/VR and how they shape the future of technology

VCE March 8, 2025

Hosted by Aryan Shah, Deep Shah, with guests “Greta Hoffmeister, Kariena Panpaliya, Dasean Volk, Hang Nguyen, Grace Eamer In this episode, the guests delve into…

Grand Challenges Special Issue

Spring 2023 Volume 6 Issue 3

Redefining Societal Progress for Engineers

Natasha Singh March 29, 2023

Dr. Erin Cech’s critique of the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges focuses heavily on the pitfalls of technological determinism. This paper supports Cech’s argument through a discussion of current examples of the consequences of technological determinism, such as the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements, medication accessibility, and facial recognition technology. Though the consequences of a zealous engineering mentality are commonplace in our society, there are also current examples of tech companies neglecting to develop technology due to its possible negative consequences.

Spring 2023 Volume 6 Issue 3

How the Technical Sciences and the Social Sciences Should Go Hand-in-Hand

Charles Liu March 29, 2023

The fourteen Grand Challenges presented by the National Academy of Engineers (NAE) fail to involve ethics as a part of the solution to these issues. Traditionally, engineers have kept their work separate from its societal implications. Engineers and their non-technical counterparts have an obligation to view all technical solutions under the moral lens of ethicists and futurists. Going forward, engineers must be aware of their limits and work with experts outside of their fields to develop solutions that will be cognizant of society as a whole.

Spring 2023 Volume 6 Issue 3

The Lies We Tell to Inspire: Responding to the Engineering Double Standard

Shub Gaur March 29, 2023

The National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges are critiqued by Dr. Erin Cech for what she describes as a double standard in engineering. Though Cech rightly discusses a lack of accountability and acknowledgement within the profession, her argument lacks nuance. The Grand Challenges were ultimately a promotional tool meant to inspire the next generation of engineers, yet Cech holds them to a standard of being professional rules and guidelines. This paper will discuss the distinctions that Cech’s argument lacks, including placing an unreasonable amount of responsibility on engineers and overstating their influence.

Spring 2023 Volume 6 Issue 3

The Grand Challenges: Authorial Particularism and a Lost Opportunity for an Equitable Society

Huzaifa Aslam March 29, 2023

The fourteen Grand Challenges were developed by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in an effort to expose future generations to the wide range of innovation and technology that they could one day take part in. As detailed by the Challenges’ creators, the list includes challenges that are most significant to our current world. Dr. Erin Cech’s critique of the Grand Challenges is that a lack of diversity in the panel of engineering experts led to a lack of oversight into issues that are actually pertinent to developing nations. Cech’s argument that the Grand Challenges are a missed opportunity for social justice holds validity, but her mischaracterization of the lack of diversity requires further consideration.

Weekly News Profile

Featured Spring 2025 Weekly News Profile

De-extinction: Does the End Justify the Means?

Janessi Diaz March 8, 2025

Colossal is a company committed to de-extinction. Its main mission is to bring back the woolly mammoth. This mission may help conserve critically endangered Asian elephants and mitigate the impacts of global warming. However, it also raises ethical concerns regarding the livelihood of wildlife that currently reside in the mammoth’s habitat.

Spring 2025 Weekly News Profile

Returned Asteroid Samples Suggest the Building Blocks for Life are Scattered Across the Universe

Rachel Pak March 3, 2025

Asteroid samples collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx not only contain the pristine building blocks for life, but also the salty remains of an ancient water world. The spacecraft was able to help unlock these discoveries because it collected samples directly from the asteroid and carefully preserved them on the way back to Earth. These findings support the idea that asteroids delivered the building blocks of life to our planet early in its history, and may have delivered them elsewhere in the solar system. The success of this mission justifies the development of future sample retrieval missions to other cosmic bodies within our solar system.

Spring 2025 Weekly News Profile