Ethics in Software Engineering

SENG 365 — Software Engineering

Neil Ernst

nernst@uvic.ca

University of Victoria

2026-07-24

Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives

Placeholder — to be developed.

• Recognize the professional and ethical responsibilities of software engineers
• Reason about the societal impact of design and implementation choices
• Apply a code of ethics (e.g. ACM/IEEE) to concrete scenarios
• Consider ethics specific to AI-assisted development (accountability, transparency)

Topics to Develop

Professional Responsibility

TODO: codes of ethics (ACM/IEEE-CS), duty to the public, whistle-blowing.

Case Studies

TODO: pick 1–2 model cases (e.g. London Ambulance dispatch, Therac-25, a recent AI failure) and walk through the decisions.

Ethics of AI-Assisted Work

TODO: accountability for AI output, transparency/disclosure, bias, IP and licensing of generated code. Link to ai-and-design.qmd and philosophy.md.

In-Class Activity

Discussion

TODO: structured debate or scenario analysis.