In my opinion companies create such departments to stave off government regulation, by pretending to already do all they can about "Ethics in AI" without government intervention.

If those people were hired for that, they failed spectacularly in their jobs.

In a wider sense, the whole "Ethics in whatever" thing seems to just be a power grab.

For example my country has Ethics groups debating Corona measures. I live in a country that theoretically is a democracy. If "ethics experts" get to make decisions that control our lives, why bother with democracy?