Professional engineers are required to consider the interests of the public in their work, have an obligation to reject unethical or harmful instructions and are regulated by their professional organization to support competency and address malpractice. Much of this was driven over the past 50-100 years as society determined that they wanted things built by engineers to not kill people or have material deficiencies following construction.

From my understanding, software engineers are a long away out from this still but perhaps we'll get there once the dust settles on more of these sorts of lawsuits.

We don't even need formal regulation to start — just honest internal conversation. I work in tech and most teams I've been part of never once discussed the ethical implications of what we were building. Not because people are evil, but because the incentive structure doesn't reward asking "should we?" — only "can we ship it?"

The gap isn't education, it's accountability. Engineers building engagement loops know exactly what they're doing. They just don't have a professional body that can revoke their license for it.

It doesn't seem to stop accountants or lawyers from being unethical.

Though I guess disbarment is a thing, but requires very specific infractions to be triggered.

It's extremely embarrassing that my (American) employer refers to me as a "software engineer" when in fact I dropped out of the university computer engineer program and can not legally call myself an engineer in my country.

I would just as soon call myself a software doctor or software lawyer. Or software architect.

I am amazed that I’ve never considered this before