Scholars and industry practitioners have debated how to best develop interventions for ethical artificial intelligence (AI). Such interventions recommend that companies building and using AI tools change their technical practices, but fail to wrangle with critical questions about the organizational and institutional context in which AI is developed. In this paper, we contribute descriptive research around the life of "AI" as a discursive concept and organizational practice in an understudied sphere--emerging AI startups--and with a focus on extra-organizational pressures faced by entrepreneurs. Leveraging a theoretical lens for how organizations change, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 23 entrepreneurs working at early-stage AI startups. We find that actors within startups both conform to and resist institutional pressures. Our analysis identifies a central tension for AI entrepreneurs: they often valued scientific integrity and methodological rigor; however, influential external stakeholders either lacked the technical knowledge to appreciate entrepreneurs' emphasis on rigor or were more focused on business priorities. As a result, entrepreneurs adopted hyped marketing messages about AI that diverged from their scientific values, but attempted to preserve their legitimacy internally. Institutional pressures and organizational constraints also influenced entrepreneurs' modeling practices and their response to actual or impending regulation. We conclude with a discussion for how such pressures could be used as leverage for effective interventions towards building ethical AI.

翻译：学术学者和行业从业人员讨论了如何最好地制定道德人工智能干预(AI)的问题。这类干预建议公司建设和使用AI工具改变其技术实践,但未能与关于AI发展过程中的组织和机构环境的关键问题纠缠不休。在本文件中,我们围绕“AI”生命的描述性研究作为“AI”生命中的不准确的概念和组织做法,在研究不足的领域—— 新兴的AI企业中,或者侧重于企业家面临的组织外压力。通过理论透镜了解组织变化的方式,我们与在AI初创阶段工作的23个企业家进行了半结构性访谈。我们发现,创业中的行为者既符合机构压力,又抵制机构压力。我们的分析发现,AI企业家面临中心紧张:他们常常重视科学廉正和方法的僵硬;然而,有影响力的外部利益攸关方要么缺乏技术知识,无法理解企业家对严格监管的强调,要么更侧重于企业面临的企业优先事项。因此,企业家们采用了与他们的科学价值观不同的关于AI的扭曲营销信息,但试图在内部维护其合法性。我们的分析发现,机构压力和组织制约因素也影响了企业对机构压力和约束,他们如何为AI的实际影响力进行模拟。