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Comment by aabhay | Hacker News Reader

> Ethics is now inside the corp. fence so it has to be heard.

Do you believe this is a viable trend? This debacle seems to point to the death of 'Ethics research' inside of corporations. What do companies stand to gain from hiring ethics researchers who are a liability to the shareholders? My guess is that the model will go back to using CSR budget to invest in 'social good' non-profits and think tanks that stay at a safe distance while still mentioning you as a 'Platinum Sponsor' and bringing you in for fireside chats.

(this is not me advocating against ethics research, or against bringing ethics into AI research; I'm just trying to be as cynically realist as possible)

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> What do companies stand to gain from hiring ethics researchers who are a liability to the shareholders?

Trying to tackle both questions at once: this is a viable trend and companies do stand to gain.

If the market is saying that you have to consider other motivations and goals aside from profits and growth, and you have built this machine that is super-efficient and effective at delivering on growth and profits irrespective of all else, you need outside skills to change.

To give a specific example, take the Norway Sovereign Fund which is one of the biggest investors in the world: it has indicated that it is incorporating environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues into their decision-making,

So, if you want to get their investment, you have to have these goals in the your corp. leadership and performance management mandate.

To enable this, you need folks with these skills, who currently are not management, in the fold ( meaning folks like social scientists, ethicists etc. having really significant corp leadership roles and authority ).

> What do companies stand to gain from hiring ethics researchers who are a liability to the shareholders?

The same thing media companies’ gain from controlling content rating systems plus the same thing any company gains from dominating research relevant to it's product area; if they do a good enough job at pretending to care, they forestall state regulation, and even if they don't succeed at that, the more influence they have over the research field, the more any outside regulation will be dependent on information that they have the ability to at least subtly spin before it is even published.

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