2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Simulating Interdisciplinary Ethics in the Engineering Business through an AI Startup Game

Presented at Engineering Ethics Division (ETHICS) Technical Session 4

While case studies are widely used to teach ethical reflection in engineering, this activity has two shortcomings that may hamper the transferrability of learning in engineering ethics to the professional context. The first difficulty is that the cases themselves are static, not changing in response to student choices, as well as being somewhat abstracted from their own experience. The second difficulty is that the learning cohort frequently lacks a range of different disciplinary perspectives, which are needed in resolving complex ethical issues in professional engineering. This paper introduces these two challenges, develops a pedagogical model inspired by philosophy of education and games, and presents a simulation game set at a fictional AI startup company based on this model.

Authors

Prof. Trystan Sterling Goetze http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3435-3264 Cornell University [biography]

Trystan Goetze is the Sue G. and Harry E. Bovay, Jr., ’36 Assistant Teaching Professor and Director of the History and Ethics of Professional Engineering. They grew up in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, and attended the University of Waterloo (Honours Knowledge Integration with Joint Honours Philosophy, 2008–12), York University (M.A. in Philosophy, 2012–13), and the University of Toronto (M.A. in Humanities, Social Sciences, and Social Justice Education, 2013–14), before taking their Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Sheffield (2014–18). Before coming to Cornell, Prof. Goetze worked as a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy at Dalhousie University (2019–21), an Ethics and Educational Development Consultant for Ethically Aligned AI, Inc. (2021), and a Postdoctoral Fellow of Embedded EthiCS at Harvard University (2021–23). In their research, Prof. Goetze has written about moral responsibility, epistemic injustice, the ethics of computing technologies, and interdisciplinary ethics pedagogy. In addition to directing the Bovay Program in the History and Ethics of Professional Engineering, Prof. Goetze is also an affiliate faculty member in the Sage School of Philosophy. In their spare time, Prof. Goetze designs, runs, and plays tabletop roleplaying games.

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