An in-depth look at the role of ethicists within tech companies, spurred by scandals like Cambridge Analytica, and their somewhat limited power to effect change
Fifty-two floors below the top of Salesforce Tower, I meet Paula Goldman in a glass-paneled conference room where the words EQUALITY OFFICE … Tweets: @dsilverman , @rachaelmyrow , @protocol , and @benioff Tweets: Dwight Silverman / @dsilverman : Tech companies are hiring ethicists to tell them how to do the right thing. You only need an “ethicist” if you left your conscience in the Uber to you took uptown. https://www.protocol.com/... Rachael Myrow / @rachaelmyrow : #ICYMI Silicon Valley companies have hired philosophers, policy experts, linguists and artists to make sure that when they promise not to be evil, they have a coherent idea of what that entails. Critics dismiss it as “ethics-washing.” https://www.protocol.com/... via @lindakinstler https://twitter.com/... @protocol : These humanists and ethicists were hired to “save” companies and make them “human.” Did it work, and are they being listened to? Meet the people who are tasked with nothing less than to help Silicon Valley find its soul. https://www.protocol.com/... Marc Benioff / @benioff : “In the wake of Cambridge Analytica, walkouts, & other political & privacy incidents, tech companies face calls to hire “ethics owners,” responsible for “the ancient, domain-jumping, & irresolvable debates about human values that underlie ethical inquiry.” https://www.protocol.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
After the Cambridge Analytica scandal forced the industry to confront how its products get used, big tech firms began hiring philosophers, policy experts, linguists, and artists — Paula Goldman's Equality Office at Salesforce being the archetype this piece profiles. The related coverage has been skeptical from the start: critics argue these boards function as ethics-washing designed to preempt government regulation, while Slate has argued ethics can supply blueprints but not implement them.
First-order effects
- Ethics staff like Goldman's gain a seat and a mandate inside firms like Salesforce, but the reporting confirms their advice is advisory — they lack authority over product and policy decisions.
Second-order effects
- The model doesn't scale down: Clarifai's CEO argues internal ethics officers don't suit small AI companies, splitting the industry into firms that can afford moral infrastructure and startups that outsource the question entirely.
- Google's response to controversy is headcount — it plans to double its AI ethics team — signaling that firms treat staffing as the fix rather than decision rights.
Third-order effects
- If ethics teams remain powerless while scandals recur, the credible enforcement layer shifts to regulators and external pressure, leaving internal ethicists as legitimacy infrastructure rather than governance.
- The pattern points toward a two-tier structure where large platforms institutionalize ethics for reputational cover while smaller players like Clarifai opt out, making formal regulation the only uniform constraint.
The trend: Corporate AI ethics is consolidating into a legitimacy function inside large labs — staffed generously after each scandal but structurally separated from decision-making power.