ETHICS-2025 Session G3 – Workshop: Science Fiction for Ethical Design: A Framework for Engineering Education

This interactive, interdisciplinary workshop will guide participants in translating principles of ethical and inclusive design into engineering systems design and professional training. The presenters will lead participants through scenarios of building an emerging technology feature or device using Autonomous Futures (AF) design principles, which are organized around three significant themes for ethical tech: Collective Power, Inclusive Engagement, and Cultural Specificity. First, presenters will guide close readings of short Afrofuturist film clips to anticipate and imagine the future impacts of new tools. Next, presenters will shift to contrasting the values embedded in Afrofuturist design with the values prioritized in emerging professional standards to identify key gaps in implementing community-based values and ethics in engineering education. Finally, participants will engage a scenario-based exercise to blend elements from fictional technologies with real-world engineering challenges and collaborate to design a teaching module that integrates Afrofuturist perspectives and a disciplinary skill. Workshop participants will build their capacity to collaborate with designers in the arts and humanities and forge a framework through which they may engage community stakeholders to produce culturally relevant designs.