Academic ethics research is often thought to be a neutral and context-independent methodology that is clearly divided from self-interested corporate rhetoric. “This boundary has become increasingly blurred in the debate over Al ethics, as all the actors use the same terminology and conceptualizations,” says Parviainen.
The efforts of Big Tech to promote trustworthy Al have can be associated with “ethics washing” and self-regulation as means of combatting new legislative measures introduced by governments and international communities. The politicization of Al ethics discourses indicates a need to expand the academic scope of tech ethics by acknowledging tech companies and their stakeholders as significant political agents.
The new research sheds light on critical discussions of tech ethics that examine the combined power of capitalism and technology and its societal implications. By diagnosing the tech industry with political intentions, critical tech ethics therefore assumes a crucial task: restoring the credibility of academic ethics so that it can provide remedies for the problems in society caused by datafication and algorithmic systems.
The research “Big Tech’s Capitalization of Al Ethics: Reflections on the Politicization of Al Ethics” has been published in the Proceedings of the 7th Conference on Technology Ethics (TETHICS2024).