Amidst decline in public trust in technology, computing ethics have taken center stage, and critics have raised questions about corporate ethics washing. Yet few studies examine the actual implementation of AI ethics values in technology companies. Based on a qualitative analysis of technology workers tasked with integrating AI ethics into product development, we find that workers experience an environment where policies, practices, and outcomes are decoupled. We analyze AI ethics workers as ethics entrepreneurs who work to institutionalize new ethics-related practices within organizations. We show that ethics entrepreneurs face three major barriers to their work. First, they struggle to have ethics prioritized in an environment centered around software product launches. Second, ethics are difficult to quantify in a context where company goals are incentivized by metrics. Third, the frequent reorganization of teams makes it difficult to access knowledge and maintain relationships central to their work. Consequently, individuals take on great personal risk when raising ethics issues, especially when they come from marginalized backgrounds. These findings shed light on complex dynamics of institutional change at technology companies.

翻译：在公众对技术信任度下降的背景下，计算伦理成为焦点，批评者对企业伦理洗白提出质疑。然而，鲜有研究考察人工智能伦理价值观在科技企业中的实际落实情况。基于对负责将AI伦理融入产品开发的技术工作者的定性分析，我们发现工作者们身处政策、实践与结果相互脱节的环境。我们将AI伦理工作者视为伦理创业者，他们致力于在组织内将新型伦理相关实践制度化。研究表明，伦理创业者在工作中面临三大障碍：首先，在以软件产品发布为中心的环境中，伦理议题难以获得优先地位；其次，在企业目标以量化指标激励的背景下，伦理价值难以被量化；第三，团队频繁重组使其难以获取关键知识并维持工作所需的核心关系。因此，个体在提出伦理问题时需承担巨大个人风险，尤其当这些个体来自边缘化背景时更为突出。这些发现揭示了科技企业制度变迁的复杂动态。