>Engineers are used by either side but they don't have their own voice and mostly because they don't have informed opinions or the cultural means and interest t

>Engineers are used by either side but they don't have their own voice and mostly because they don't have informed opinions or the cultural means and interest to join a non-technical debate as a cohesive force. Not strictly true engineers do concern themselves with ethics and issues are discussed including in professional journals etc(For example look at what IEEE has to say about ethics of AI) it may not be public debate but it is not ignored. One thing you are missing is Engineers work for companies which tend to place limits what you can communicate publicly. Pretty much everything has to be released via official channels which go through all the PR Spin. I can think of at least two reasons for this. 1. The information could be considered stock market sensitive and 2. it's very easy for something you say informally 'off the cuff' to be taken as a company position by lazy media who can't distinguish between "engineer who works for company x says..." and "company x says..." I am an Engineer (I don't work in AI) but my company places strict limits on what we can say on things like social media and to reporters, at conferences etc so yes that does exclude participation in 'the public debate'. I don't know about software world (I am the non software type of engineer) but we had courses on professional conduct at university (which covered professional communication, alongside topics such as, Ethics, regulatory compliance, liability etc).