I used to be strong proponent of this but after learning about the actual professional ethical constraints "real" engineers operate under I have changed my mind. Engineers are forbidden to mislead their clients, and from taking shortcuts and cost-cutting measures that are known to increase certain risks of unanticipated harm.

But they may still harm! If "real" engineering ethics allow them to make landmines and cruise missiles, it certainly allows us to make spyware and racist sentencing algorithms. It would help with data breaches I'm pretty sure, but therac-25 and 737-MAX type incidents are already pretty rare. Most of the damage caused by software is intentional.

Whatever we need here we can't copy from traditional engineering, because they don't have it either.