NisargDesai's Idea / Prospect

Enough is Enough: An Open Appeal to Engineers—Say NO to AI That Harms Humanity

 

Dear Fellow Engineers,

We didn’t become engineers to dehumanize, degrade, or destroy.

But right now, we’re at a turning point. Technologies that were once created in the spirit of innovation and imagination are being twisted into tools of violation, exploitation, and abuse.

From DeepFaceLab to StyleGAN, from LoRA fine-tuned on stolen imagery to Stable Diffusion pipelines trained to strip people’s dignity—these tools are being weaponized for one of the darkest sides of the internet: the non-consensual generation of pornographic images and videos.

We Are the Builders. But What Are We Building?

As engineers, we know the power of what we create. Yet some of the most advanced generative tools of our time are being trained and shared publicly with zero accountability, sometimes even encouraged by developer communities in the name of “freedom” and “open-source ethics.”

Let’s be clear:

There is nothing ethical about releasing a nudification model trained on stolen images.
There is no freedom in enabling the violation of someone’s bodily autonomy through AI.

Disturbing Incidents That Demand Action

• In 2023, a viral case from South Korea revealed that high school students had used AI apps to generate nude images of classmates, causing national outrage and leading to emergency legislative reviews.
• In India, a 2024 incident involved AI-generated pornographic content falsely linked to a prominent woman journalist. Despite her public denial, the damage to her reputation was irreversible and the videos are still circulating.
• A 2022 report from The Washington Post detailed how GitHub repositories were hosting step-by-step guides and pre-trained models to create deepfake pornography, openly accessible for months before takedown.
• YouTube and Telegram have been complicit too: multiple channels and groups are actively promoting NSFW AI-generated content, some under the guise of “art” or “AI experiments.” Many remain online despite repeated reports.

• In 2023, a viral case involved AI-generated nude images of Indian schoolgirls circulated on messaging apps. Despite outrage, police action was limited and delayed.

• Bollywood actresses and news anchors have had their faces superimposed on explicit videos using open-source AI tools. These videos resurface across adult sites and are difficult to remove.

• A YouTube channel with hundreds of thousands of views was recently discovered publishing AI-generated pornographic avatars, many resembling real women without consent.

• Multiple GitHub repositories continue to host nudification models with pre-trained weights under misleading names, escaping moderation.

We Must Act—Not Later, But Now

Here's What You Can Do:

Report:
If you come across GitHub repos, Hugging Face models, Civitai LoRAs, or other public datasets/tools created with the intent of nudification, deepfake porn, or targeting individuals, report them immediately to platform moderators.

Refuse to Contribute:
Do not support, fork, or star repositories that even subtly hint at NSFW exploitation. Your one star validates misuse.

Call Out:
Challenge colleagues or friends who engage in or support the development of such tools. Stay respectful, but firm. Your silence is permission.

Appeal to Hosting Platforms:
Email, tag, or write to GitHub, Hugging Face, and other hosts. Ask them to ban or restrict AI models trained for NSFW or exploitative purposes, unless under strict license and regulation.

To the Organizations Behind These Models:

We appeal to you—NVIDIA, Stability AI, Meta, OpenAI, and others:

You are shaping the future. Will it be humane, or horrific?

• Do not release foundation models without safeguards.

• Do not allow NSFW or "uncensored" forks without hard boundaries.

• Do not sit silent while your tech enables harassment, revenge porn, or worse.

You owe more than disclaimers. You owe the world accountability.

Engineering Was Never Meant to Be Neutral

Being an engineer doesn't mean you "just build the thing."
It means you understand the impact of what you build—and you choose humanity first.

Let’s build with conscience. Let’s build with care.
Let’s draw the line now, not when it’s too late.

Join Us

If you’re an engineer who believes in ethics, decency, and dignity—speak up.
Share this. Post your own version. Report unethical code. Educate others.
And help make engineering a force for humanity—not harm.

Because if we don’t act, who will?

Visit engineersheaven.org to join a growing community of engineers working for social good.

Share this article on social media using #EngineeringForHumanity #EthicalAI #StopDeepFake

 

IntroductionIn the age of AI, engineers are unlocking unprecedented possibilities to reshape human life. But a growing number are choosing to exploit those powers—not to heal, educate, or uplift—but to materialize and objectify human bodies, especially women, through unethical deep learning applications like DeepFake porn, DeepNude generators, and nudification software. These tools, powered by open-source frameworks like TensorFlow and PyTorch, are being weaponized against humanity.

This article is a call to conscience—for engineers, researchers, developers, and students. It's time we examine how our tools are being used, and whether we’re shaping a future worth living in.

The Problem

1. Open Source, Open Abuse: TensorFlow, PyTorch, and similar frameworks were never meant to dehumanize. Yet today, they’re the backbone of underground communities creating deepfake pornography, often without consent. Pre-trained models and guides for face-swapping or nudifying victims are now just a search away.

2. Engineering Without Ethics: Many young developers, excited by the thrill of "what's possible," overlook the question of "what's right." This ethical vacuum has resulted in software that degrades dignity while being paraded as innovation.

3. Victims in Silence: Women—especially public figures and students—are increasingly being targeted. Most of these tools are deployed anonymously, making the pursuit of justice incredibly difficult. In many parts of the world, especially in India, laws exist but enforcement is slow, tech literacy in law enforcement is weak, and cultural stigmas keep victims from speaking up.

4. Demand and Desensitization: A disturbing digital culture fuels this. Mass consumption of non-consensual adult content generates demand, while platforms delay action. This isn't a fringe issue—it's becoming mainstream.

Disturbing Incidents That Demand Action

• In 2023, a viral case from South Korea revealed that high school students had used AI apps to generate nude images of classmates, causing national outrage and leading to emergency legislative reviews.

• In India, a 2024 incident involved AI-generated pornographic content falsely linked to a prominent woman journalist. Despite her public denial, the damage to her reputation was irreversible and the videos are still circulating.

• A 2022 report from The Washington Post detailed how GitHub repositories were hosting step-by-step guides and pre-trained models to create deepfake pornography, openly accessible for months before takedown.

• YouTube and Telegram have been complicit too: multiple channels and groups are actively promoting NSFW AI-generated content, some under the guise of “art” or “AI experiments.” Many remain online despite repeated reports.

The Role of Engineers

Engineers are not passive toolmakers. We are active participants in building the moral architecture of the digital world. Every piece of code we write either builds or breaks society. If we ignore where our models end up, we are complicit.

• We must adopt ethical development standards.

• We must build and support AI for defense, not destruction—like deepfake detection tools, authenticity watermarking, and consent-based modeling.

• We must call out and boycott platforms or repositories promoting unethical tech.

The Need for a Cultural Shift

In countries like India, there is little emotional or cultural attachment to engineering. Society idolizes godmen and film stars—but engineers, who shape the nation’s infrastructure, remain invisible. Until we restore dignity and responsibility to the engineering profession, it will continue to be hijacked by bad actors.

We must:

• Promote engineering ethics in colleges.

• Raise awareness through storytelling—highlight victims, expose harm, educate users.

• Hold our own accountable—just as the medical field regulates malpractice, we need tech peer-review and censure.

ConclusionWe are at a tipping point. The same algorithms that can bring clean water, predict disease, or connect remote classrooms are being used to violate people’s privacy, identity, and dignity. But we—engineers, developers, thinkers—still hold the power to rewrite this script.

Let’s not become the generation that built AI to destroy the soul of humanity. Let us be the ones who stood up and coded for conscience.

Call to Action:

• Share this article with your peers.

• Join the movement at engineersheaven.orgto advocate for ethical engineering.

• Speak out, build responsibly, and mentor others to do the same.

These cases demonstrate how compromises in mechanical design, manufacturing, or operational decisions, often driven by external pressures, lead to severe consequences. 1. The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster (1986)

• Mechanical Engineering Focus: The failure centered on the O-rings in the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs), a critical mechanical sealing component. Mechanical engineers were directly involved in their design, testing, and assessment of their performance under various conditions, particularly temperature.
• Ethical Compromise (ME Context):
  • Public Safety Paramountcy: Mechanical engineers explicitly warned that the O-rings would lose their sealing capability at cold temperatures (below 53°F / 12°C), putting the lives of the astronauts at unacceptable risk. This warning was based on test data and mechanical principles.
  • Objectivity & Integrity: Management pressured the engineers to change their professional judgment and sign off on a launch recommendation that went against their data and expertise. The engineers' integrity was compromised by the hierarchy.
• Consequences:
  • Catastrophic Loss of Life: All seven astronauts died.
  • Fundamental Design Flaw Exposure: The investigation revealed a critical mechanical design vulnerability that was known but not adequately addressed.
  • Erosion of Trust: Damaged public and scientific trust in NASA and the engineering rigor of the space program.
  • Impact on Engineering Culture: Sparked widespread discussions about ethical responsibilities of engineers, the importance of dissenting technical opinions, and the role of management in suppressing safety concerns.
• ME Learning Point: Highlights the paramount ethical duty of mechanical engineers to prioritize safety over schedule or political pressure, and the importance of clear, unambiguous communication of risk. The O-ring failure is a classic case study in material science and mechanical design under extreme conditions, intrinsically linked to ethical decision-making.

2. The Ford Pinto Fuel Tank Scandal (1970s)

• Mechanical Engineering Focus: The entire design of the fuel tank's placement and structural integrity in rear-end collisions was a mechanical engineering responsibility. The knowledge of the flaw stemmed from mechanical crash testing.
• Ethical Compromise (ME Context):
  • Public Safety Paramountcy: Mechanical engineers identified a known, critical design flaw that directly endangered occupants.
  • Environmental Stewardship (Indirect): While not direct environmental pollution, the fiery crashes added to environmental contamination and the high energy release was part of the lifecycle impact.
  • Fairness & Equity: The deliberate decision to compromise on safety was a choice to expose consumers to undue risk for profit, demonstrating a lack of fairness.
• Consequences:
  • Deaths and Severe Injuries: Due to fiery crashes, directly resulting from the compromised mechanical design.
  • Reputational Ruin: Ford's image as a responsible automaker was severely damaged.
  • Legal Precedent: Set a significant legal precedent for corporate accountability in product liability cases.
• ME Learning Point: A stark example of where mechanical engineers, or the management influencing them, made a cold, calculated decision to compromise on a known safety flaw in a mechanical system for economic gain, with tragic human consequences. It emphasizes the direct link between mechanical design choices and human life.

3. The Boeing 737 MAX Crashes (2018-2019)

• Mechanical Engineering Focus: The installation of larger, more forward-placed engines (a mechanical change) on an existing airframe necessitated a new flight control software system (MCAS) to prevent aerodynamic stalls. Mechanical engineers were involved in the engine integration, aerodynamic analysis, and understanding the resulting flight dynamics. The failure to adequately inform pilots about MCAS's mechanical impact (e.g., trimming the stabilizer) was critical.
• Ethical Compromise (ME Context):
  • Public Safety & Reliability: Compromising comprehensive mechanical design analysis and pilot training requirements to avoid costly simulator training, prioritizing speed to market.
  • Integrity & Transparency: Insufficient disclosure of the MCAS system's operational details, which fundamentally altered how pilots interacted with the aircraft's mechanical controls.
  • Competence: Over-reliance on software to fix a mechanical/aerodynamic problem, without fully understanding its failure modes or adequately training users.
• Consequences:
  • Catastrophic Loss of Life: 346 fatalities across two crashes.
  • Global Grounding: Unprecedented grounding of an entire aircraft fleet, leading to massive financial losses for Boeing and airlines.
  • Severe Reputational Damage: Boeing's standing as an engineering leader severely tarnished.
  • Scrutiny of Regulatory Oversight: Highlighted failures in the FAA's certification process and its relationship with manufacturers.
• ME Learning Point: Shows how mechanical design changes (engine placement) can have ripple effects requiring complex software solutions, and how compromising on thorough testing, pilot training, and transparency can lead to catastrophic failures of a highly integrated mechanical-software system. It underscores the ethical responsibility in system-level mechanical design and integration.

4. The Volkswagen "Dieselgate" Emissions Scandal (2015)

• Mechanical Engineering Focus: The core of the scandal involved the design of the diesel engine and its emissions control system. Mechanical engineers were responsible for designing these engines, the exhaust gas recirculation systems, catalytic converters, and the embedded software that controlled their operation. The "defeat device" was a mechanical/software control system designed to lie.
• Ethical Compromise (ME Context):
  • Environmental Stewardship: Deliberately designing an engine that vastly exceeded legal emissions limits during normal operation. This directly contributed to air pollution and health problems.
  • Honesty & Integrity: Intentional deception in the design of the engine's control software to fool emissions tests. This was a clear act of fraud.
  • Public Health: The excess emissions directly impacted air quality in cities, contributing to respiratory diseases and other health issues.
• Consequences:
  • Massive Fines & Penalties: Billions of dollars in fines, one of the largest corporate penalties in history.
  • Criminal Charges & Imprisonment: For several executives and engineers involved.
  • Severe Reputational Damage: Permanently damaged VW's brand image and trust.
  • Environmental Impact: Millions of tons of excess pollutants released.
• ME Learning Point: A glaring example of mechanical engineers (and their leadership) making a conscious, unethical decision to design a system to deceive regulators and the public, leading to massive environmental harm, legal repercussions, and reputational destruction. It highlights the ethical responsibilities in powertrain design and control systems.

5. Love Canal (1970s)

• Mechanical Engineering Focus: While broader than just ME, mechanical engineers would have been involved in the design and operation of the chemical manufacturing processes, waste containment systems, and potentially the material handling and disposal infrastructure at the site. The failure of the containment and the subsequent environmental migration of chemicals are directly related to mechanical and civil engineering principles of sealing, flow, and material properties.
• Ethical Compromise (ME Context):
  • Environmental Stewardship: The decision to dump hazardous waste directly into an unlined canal, and later to sell the land knowing the risks, was a profound failure of environmental responsibility.
  • Public Health & Safety: Direct disregard for the long-term health and safety of the community that would eventually live near the site.
  • Accountability: The attempt to absolve responsibility through a deed disclaimer underscores an ethical failure in accountability.
• Consequences:
  • Severe Health Crisis: High rates of illness and birth defects among residents.
  • Mass Evacuation: Entire community displaced.
  • Long-Term Environmental Catastrophe: Designated a Superfund site requiring decades of cleanup.
  • Legal Precedent: Helped establish stricter environmental laws and corporate liability for pollution.
• ME Learning Point: Illustrates how improper waste management and disposal, stemming from a lack of foresight and ethical disregard for environmental and public health in industrial processes, can lead to devastating long-term consequences. Mechanical engineers have a role in designing sustainable and safe industrial systems, including waste handling.

These examples provide concrete, real-world illustrations of how compromising core ethical principles in mechanical engineering can lead to catastrophic, and often preventable, outcomes. They serve as powerful warnings and essential case studies for teaching responsible engineering.

Universal Ethical Principles for Mechanical Engineering (Applicable to All Subfields)

Before diving into specifics, let's reiterate the core principles that form the foundation:

1. Public Health, Safety, and Welfare Paramountcy: The primary duty of an engineer is to protect the public. This means ensuring designs are safe, reliable, and do not pose undue risks to users or the environment.
2. Honesty and Integrity: Be truthful in all professional dealings, avoid deceptive acts, credit others' work, and don't misrepresent data or capabilities.
3. Competence: Practice only in areas of your expertise, and continuously update your knowledge and skills.
4. Objectivity and Impartiality: Base decisions on facts, data, and sound engineering judgment, not personal gain, bias, or external pressure.
5. Confidentiality and Intellectual Property: Protect proprietary information and respect intellectual property rights.
6. Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability: Consider the environmental impact of designs throughout their lifecycle and strive for sustainable solutions.
7. Professional Development and Lifelong Learning: Continuously enhance knowledge and skills, and contribute to the advancement of the profession.
8. Fairness and Equity: Design for broad accessibility and avoid discrimination or exacerbating societal inequalities.
9. Accountability and Transparency: Take responsibility for your work and be open about processes and potential risks.

Ethical Principles & Considerations by Mechanical Engineering Subfield:

Now, let's see how these general principles get specialized:

1. Automotive Engineering (Vehicles, Components, Manufacturing)

• Core Focus: Safety (crashworthiness, reliability), environmental impact (emissions, fuel efficiency), and user experience.
• Specific Ethical Principles/Considerations:
  • Safety Beyond Compliance: Not just meeting minimum regulatory standards, but striving for the highest possible safety features (e.g., advanced driver-assistance systems, robust crumple zones).
  • Autonomous Vehicle Ethics:
    • "Trolley Problem" scenarios: How should AI-driven cars make split-second decisions in unavoidable accident situations (e.g., protect occupants vs. minimize external harm)?
    • Responsibility & Liability: Who is accountable when an autonomous vehicle causes an accident (manufacturer, software developer, owner, user)?
    • Transparency of Algorithms: Should the decision-making logic of AVs be fully transparent?
  • Environmental Responsibility:
    • Emissions Cheating: The VW "Dieselgate" scandal is a prime example of a gross ethical breach.
    • Lifecycle Emissions: Accounting for emissions from manufacturing, use, and disposal (e.g., battery production for EVs).
    • Planned Obsolescence: Designing components to fail after a certain period to drive new sales vs. designing for durability and repairability.
  • Consumer Privacy: Data collected by connected cars (driving habits, location) and how it's used and protected.
  • Repairability and Right to Repair: Designing vehicles that can be repaired by independent mechanics, not just dealership networks, affecting consumer choice and cost.

2. Robotics & Automation (Industrial, Service, Collaborative Robots)

• Core Focus: Safety in human-robot interaction, job displacement, autonomy, and accountability.
• Specific Ethical Principles/Considerations:
  • Human Safety & Control: Ensuring robots operate safely around humans, with clear stop mechanisms and predictable behavior. Prioritizing human life over robot function (akin to Asimov's Laws, but in a practical engineering context).
  • Accountability for Autonomous Actions: As robots become more autonomous, determining who is responsible for their actions and failures.
  • Job Displacement: Ethical obligation to consider the societal impact of automation on the workforce and contribute to solutions (e.g., reskilling, UBI discussions).
  • Bias in Robotic Perception/Action: If robots use AI, ensuring their decision-making isn't biased against certain demographics.
  • Exploitation/Manipulation: Designing robots (especially companion or care robots) not to exploit vulnerable users' emotions or create unhealthy dependencies. Transparency about a robot's non-human nature.
  • Privacy & Surveillance: Robots with sensors (cameras, microphones) collecting data in homes or public spaces.

3. Manufacturing Engineering (Processes, Supply Chains, Factory Design)

• Core Focus: Worker safety, environmental impact of production, resource efficiency, and supply chain ethics.
• Specific Ethical Principles/Considerations:
  • Worker Safety & Well-being: Designing safe factory environments, ergonomic workstations, and proper safeguards for machinery. Avoiding dangerous practices or cutting corners on safety training.
  • Environmental Pollution: Minimizing waste, air and water pollution from manufacturing processes. Responsible disposal of hazardous materials.
  • Resource Depletion: Optimizing material usage, energy efficiency in production, and exploring sustainable manufacturing methods (e.g., additive manufacturing to reduce waste).
  • Supply Chain Ethics: Ensuring ethical labor practices (no child labor, fair wages, safe conditions) and sustainable sourcing of raw materials across global supply chains.
  • Quality Control & Reliability: Ensuring products are manufactured to specified quality standards to prevent defects that could cause harm.
  • Automation & Human Dignity: While automation can reduce dangerous tasks, ensuring it doesn't dehumanize labor or create excessively monitored environments.

4. Aerospace Engineering (Aircraft, Spacecraft, Propulsion)

• Core Focus: Extreme safety and reliability, national security implications, environmental impact of flight.
• Specific Ethical Principles/Considerations:
  • Absolute Reliability: Given the catastrophic consequences of failure, an exceptionally high ethical bar for reliability, redundancy, and testing.
  • Public Trust: Maintaining public trust in air travel and space exploration.
  • National Security vs. Civilian Harm: The ethical implications of designing military aircraft or weapons systems, particularly regarding minimizing civilian casualties and adhering to international law.
  • Environmental Impact of Aviation: Reducing carbon emissions, noise pollution, and other environmental impacts of air travel. Designing more efficient engines and alternative fuels.
  • Space Debris: Ethical responsibility for contributing to and mitigating orbital debris, which poses a long-term threat to future space activities.

5. HVAC & Renewable Energy Systems (Building Systems, Energy Production)

• Core Focus: Energy efficiency, environmental impact, public health (indoor air quality), and equitable access to energy.
• Specific Ethical Principles/Considerations:
  • Energy Efficiency & Conservation: Designing systems that minimize energy consumption to reduce environmental footprint and operational costs for users.
  • Indoor Air Quality & Health: Ensuring HVAC systems provide healthy indoor environments, preventing mold, pathogens, and poor ventilation.
  • Sustainable Material Sourcing: Ethical considerations in mining and processing rare earth minerals for renewable energy components (e.g., wind turbines, solar panels, batteries).
  • Land Use & Ecosystem Impact: Ethical management of land footprint for large-scale solar farms or wind turbine installations, considering impact on local ecosystems and communities.
  • Equity and Access: Ensuring that sustainable energy solutions are accessible and affordable to all segments of society, not just the privileged. Avoiding "green gentrification."
  • Long-Term Decommissioning: Planning for the responsible disposal and recycling of renewable energy infrastructure at the end of its lifespan.

Common Thread: In every subfield, the engineer's ethical challenge lies in balancing technical requirements, economic pressures, regulatory compliance, and market demands with the paramount duty to uphold public health, safety, welfare, environmental stewardship, and human dignity. Your personal strategy of documenting concerns and asking for explicit directives is a powerful practical application of these principles in a high-pressure, "money-hungry" environment. This type of proactive ethical engineering is precisely what your course should aim to teach.

1. Introduction: A Crisis of Priorities

From smart homes and cashless cafes to AI tutors for the rich — engineering is thriving. Yet, thousands of government schools still don’t have basic science labs. Rural hospitals run without refrigeration while startups build robots to fold laundry.

Something’s off.

2. The Problem: Convenience Over Necessity

Engineering talent is being directed toward solving premium problems:

• Drone delivery for groceries, but no last-mile cold chains for vaccines.

• Data centers for digital ads, but no solar grids for tribal schools.

• Algorithms for luxury shopping, but no systems for farmer market pricing transparency.

It’s not that these innovations are bad — they’re just disproportionately prioritized.

3. The Consequence: Innovation Gaps That Widen Inequality

We are witnessing a split:

• Urban elites get AI-generated legal assistance. Villagers still wait for a basic court date.

• Smart irrigation for export farms. Manual water carry for subsistence farmers.

• EdTech for private coaching. Chalkboards for public education.

This isn’t innovation for humanity. It’s innovation for profitability.

4. A New Vision: Equitable Engineering

We don’t reject advancement. We demand balance.

Imagine:

• Engineers focusing on public sanitation sensors, not just smart kitchen gadgets.

• College incubators supporting rural transport solutions, not just crypto wallets.

• National hackathons targeting public health tools, not dating apps.

That’s the shift — from indulgence to inclusion.

5. The Call to Action

Engineers must:

• Redefine success as impact for many, not luxury for a few.

• Choose career paths that address societal needs, not just salaries.

• Build with empathy, test with diversity, deploy with equity.

Let us remember: the best engineering is not what dazzles — it’s what dignifies.