Investigating Software Engineers’ Communication Practices of Ethics in Tech Industry
Ploy Pruekcharoen*, Xingyu Li*, Noura Howell, Richmond Wong; Academic Research
Abstract
This paper investigates how software engineers express and communicate ethical concerns in scenarios of Emotion AI (EAI) deployment. We invited software engineers to participate in a scenario-based speculative enactment activity in which they acted out scenarios working as engineers at a fictional EAI company, and replied to three emails with ethical issues complaints. This was followed by semi-structured interviews. Our analysis identifies three communication strategies—direct expression, tactical expression or soft resistance, and limiting expression—shaped by personal values, organizational expectation, and power dynamics. Overall, this paper highlights the communication practices through which engineers engage with ethical issues in organizational settings, how engineers’ perceived “license to critique” shapes their communication, the emotional work involved in ethics communication, and reflections on our use of a speculative enactment activity as a research approach to learn about engineers’ practices.
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