alt Hacker NewsI am not in the AI ethics field, but I've watched multiple tech-adjacent disciplines that say "that's what engineering and product are for" get subsumed by engineering and product, who don't really care for a group that sees themselves above implementation. Based on history alone, that's what I expect to happen whether you agree with that or not, and I suspect this tension is driving at least part of the role of AI ethics at companies trying to turn profit.
I agree.
Specifically because in these companies they aren't optimizing for ethical behaviour.
They're optimizing for profit. And those damn ethicists just get in the way.
Funny thing: that doesn't typically happen to the internal legal counsel or accounting that's responsible for guiding processes/practices that are required for compliance or similar.
Why?
Because there's consequences.