Interessante (e velocissimo) excursus storico https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/at-work/tech-careers/ethics-engineers-di... Il concetto di “loyal opposition” però mi lascia molto perplesso. Al di là della vaga flessibilità (che giocherà sempre a vantaggio del management), mi appare come un contentino. "Sì dai... placate le vostre coscienze facendoci perdere un po' di tempo... basta che poi fate quello che diciamo noi..." Forse all'Università bisognerebbe offrire corsi (obbligatori) di etica pratica. Un semestre per allenarsi a dire "No. Non si può fare." invece di "No. Non è giusto." Giacomo _____ In June 2018, Microsoft employees critical of a contract between the company and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wrote to Satya Nadella, the company’s chief, accusing him and other Microsoft executives of “abdicating” ethical responsibility. In October, of this year, employees of Microsoft’s GitHub unit lodged the same protests over a GitHub contract with ICE. Last year Google employees revolted over the company’s plans to design a censored version of its search engine for the Chinese market codenamed “Project Dragonfly.” Reportedly more than a thousand Google employees signed a public letter of complaint, and the company dropped the project. Not all dissenters are liberals. In 2017, a Google software engineer named James Damore stirred controversy by internally circulating a memo complaining that “an ideological echo chamber” prevented “some ideas” about diversity from being “honestly discussed.” Among those, Damore insisted, was the possibility that the low number of women in technical positions at Google was the result biological differences and not gender stereotyping. When Damore’s memo went public (and viral), Google fired him. No matter the source or political complexion, some rebel engineers choose to move on. While working at Google, Tristan Harris claimed the company purposely designed systems that promote digital addictions, or intense cravings to remain online. In 2013, he shared with coworkers a presentation entitled, “A Call to Minimize Distraction & Respect Users’ Attention.” Harris suggested that Google, Apple and Facebook should “feel an enormous responsibility” to make sure humanity doesn't spend its days immersed in digital experiences. Tens of thousands of Google employees reportedly viewed the presentation, and debated internally the company’s responsibilities towards society. Harris no longer works at Google and now, as the director of an advocacy group named Center for Humane Technology, actively campaigns against the power of “big tech” to colonize the minds of its users. [...] The dissenting impulse among EEs is closely tied to attitudes towards professionalization. Engineers are sometimes caught between twin ideals—between the independence and self-governance afforded, say, physicians and lawyers, and the view advanced by many corporate employers that engineers are employees who must follower orders, so that those who resist management dictates are guilty of insubordination and disloyalty. The tension between independence and obligations to employers has shaped the rise of engineering as a profession. In a path breaking study first published in 1971, Revolt of the Engineers: Social Responsibility and the American Engineering Profession, historian Edwin Layton recounted of the political activities of engineers in the 1920s and 1930s. In a preface to the book in 1986, Layton expressed the hope that engineers can ultimately become a “loyal opposition” within American business, neither uncritically following management nor instinctively dismissive of the justifiable demands of large corporate employers. [...]