ONLINE FIRST
published on May 8, 2025
Derek Leben

https://doi.org/10.5840/tej202557158
Using Business Ethics to Teach AI Ethics
Faculty who teach AI Ethics can learn a lot from those teaching Business Ethics (and vice-versa). This paper provides a survey of a course designed for MBA students, Ethics and AI, exploring the ways in which traditional debates about responsible corporate practices can frame ethical challenges in the responsible design and deployment of AI systems. The course is organized by ethical issue, roughly tracking the flow of information through a model, from data to impacts. Topics include: (1) data ownership, (2) transparency, (3) discrimination, (4) fairness, (5) safety and liability. The course employs normative theories¡ªUtilitarianism, Contractarianism, Libertarianism, and Virtue Ethics¡ªto help students criticize and defend corporate policies and decisions. Ultimately, the goal is to train students in criticizing and defending decisions around the use of AI in products and operations, rather than thinking about AI in a vacuum.