@twryst collectively, if not individually, engineers have a lot of power to influence the way that things change. There are many engineering problems which are interesting but which also have problematic consequences.

For example, I recently attended a job interview for something which involved machine learning and where I would have been able to apply libdeep on some commercial problems. But it turned out that their application was fundamentally about implementing DRM (digital restrictions management) - i.e. about trying to take away the rights of users. Benefiting some people at the expense of the majority. When I asked the interviewers what their opinion of DRM was they suddenly became very uneasy and said they might give an opinion "if we were chatting down the pub" but not on the company premises. That is, their opinions were likely in conflict with the engineering which they were doing (i.e. they lacked personal integrity).

DRM is one among a growing number of what I'd call "technologies of disempowerment and dispossession".

However, in my observation, most engineers are keen on working on the latest trending technology, and don't even pause to consider the social impact of their work. They somehow naively believe that high technology is for its own sake, and is inherently good.