“PM Trudeau and the Liberal Party have a tough time when a chemical engineer, a psychologist, and an applied scientist/computer scientist challenge them. If only the entire tech community would summon more courage to do the same. They grew up loving cool, innovative things, but somewhere along the line, recently, they’ve seemingly forgotten what once inspired them and have decided there is no such thing as cool engineers or cool developers. Nothing can be cool anymore or correct in any way. Citizens and professional citizens cannot have the answers apparently, and STEM community seems ok with it.
Now, when bad policy changes occur, the tech community too often remains silent. The professional designation committees, boards, and presidents who oversee tech credentials, along with their associated codes of conduct and ethics emphasizing public safety, are probably bewildered by the current generation of STEM professionals, who seem uninterested and uninvolved in their professional responsibilities that transcend the immediate work product development at the job site.
Moreover, very few high level educators or professors from Colleges and Universities seem to be challenging government standards, allowing media in entirety to educate the public as to current conditions and policy. How can the public know what’s going on, if professors have such little media exposure, and it has been this way since 1991. Professionals today have a new power that they did not have before the rise of the internet.
Professional responsibility, and the legislation the way it is written as to the power they have over their area of practice, well has anyone asked what happens if their practice ends up delivering work and engaging with every user on the internet? That is no longer a small dozen person collective. So the rules which formerly applied to a small group, now provide the professional authority in engagement with the entire user base of the nation in some cases.
As our society morphs into a network interconnected by the internet, and we already know every professional is responsible for the public safety in their area of practice, but now with the modification towards vast user bases for all professionals – not just a small group – this means that the STEM community is actually the 21st century regulator of public safety, not PM Trudeau and Liberal Party. It can be the case that the PM Trudeau an Liberal Party is attempting to take the job of the STEM community.
This adherence to safety and ethics that all STEM community does, is something we all agreed to uphold in earning our professional titles. Yet, when faced with governmental challenges online, the tech community often remains passive, failing to investigate, failing to involve in volunteer organizations so as to investigate the city elections and what goes on in their area where they practice, and failing to protect the public welfare and interest they pledged to serve and that is #1 requirement as part of the contract so that they can serve.
With potential risks in legislation from Liberal Party, which raises ongoing suspicions via unique attributes never before experienced, such as the speed of new legislation deployment, like speech regulation, online harms, censorship, and property confiscation ideas, etc.. isn’t it time for STEM professionals — or at least their university teachers and professors — if not the community as a whole, to stand up and protect the true designers of the future? the true engineers and builders of the tech vision for our future, 21st century? Is the STEM community really okay with allowing Trudeau to single-handedly shape the future of Canada? Do they think professional STEM is simply an algorithm, equation and a schematic?”
Related Books and Resources:
“The Ethics of Invention” by Sheila Jasanoff – This book explores how technology and ethics intersect and the complex role that innovation plays in society, emphasizing the responsibilities of professionals in shaping technology policy.
“The Innovators” by Walter Isaacson – Isaacson’s book details the history of the digital revolution, focusing on the individuals who developed computers and the internet. It’s an exploration of how collaborative problem-solving has led to the technological innovations that shape our world.
“Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech” by Sara Wachter-Boettcher – This work critiques the ways in which technology has been developed without sufficient consideration for ethics, public safety, and social impact, reflecting on the responsibilities of those who create and deploy technology.
“Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing” by Marie Hicks – Hicks’ book investigates how gender biases in tech not only affected individual careers but also national competitiveness. It provides a historical view on how professional and societal biases can lead to significant losses in innovation.
“The Social License: How to Keep Your Organization Legitimate” by John Morrison – Morrison discusses the concept of “social license” and the ethical responsibilities organizations have towards society, particularly relevant for STEM professionals and industries.
“Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy” by Cathy O’Neil – This book examines the dark side of big data and how it can be used in ways that reinforce inequality and undermine democracy, highlighting the critical role of professionals in ensuring ethical practices in technology.
“Whistleblowing and Ethics in Health and Social Care” by Angie Ash – Although focused on healthcare, this book’s discussion on whistleblowing and ethical practice is highly relevant for tech professionals dealing with unethical policies or practices.
“Future Ethics” by Cennydd Bowles – Bowles confronts the challenges that new technologies pose to ethical norms and values, arguing for a radical rethinking of how we define and implement ethics in a technological society.
“Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism” by Safiya Umoja Noble – Noble’s work demonstrates how algorithms can perpetuate societal biases and the responsibility of tech professionals to address these issues in their work.
“The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires” by Tim Wu – Wu explores the cycle of new technologies: from open systems that provide opportunities for innovation to their transformation into closed systems that limit it, providing historical insights that are crucial for today’s tech debates.