[McScroogy]

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?

[TheSpiceIsLife]

Aren't most (all?) modern democracies some flavour of representative democracy?

We elect politicians who appoint bureaucrats who hire staff to run departments, who'll then take advice from committees and expect advisers.

It reads to me like you mean to imply direct democracy, which I suspect would be some magnitudes of order more terrifying than the incompetent fools and puppets presently steering the ships.

[McScroogy]

It's true that in theory it should be possible to elect another government that chooses not to delegate to the "Ethics Experts". I am not claiming we live in a totalitarian regime because the government decided to consult ethics experts.

It just seems that in this case, ethics are exactly what the people should be voting on - the value system of the society they want. So delegating to an ethics committee is at best propaganda and making excuses for not doing what the people want.