In today’s rapidly evolving landscape, concerns about the role of artificial intelligence in the workforce are growing. However, not everyone shares the same apprehensions. Denise Kleinrichert, a management professor at San Francisco State University, provides a refreshing perspective on the integration of AI in business practices.
Kleinrichert envisions a future where AI is as ubiquitous as mobile phones, and departments dedicated to overseeing AI usage will be as commonplace as human resources teams. “Is it going to completely replace all human beings? I can’t foresee that in our lifetime. Or a future lifetime,” she stated. “It’s just changing the way we do business.”
For this optimistic vision to materialize, Kleinrichert emphasizes the importance of educating employees about AI—specifically, how it operates, where biases may occur, potential threats to privacy, and how to identify inaccurate AI outputs. To this end, she leads a course on AI ethics and compliance as part of San Francisco State’s graduate certificate in ethical artificial intelligence, offered since 2019. “Employers are looking for employees who have some savviness about what is ethical and what isn’t when it comes to AI,” she explained. “We need to prepare our students.”
The rising importance of understanding AI ethics has led to a surge in the popularity of related courses, certificates, and master’s programs. These programs cater to both individuals with limited computer science backgrounds and those looking to apply AI in specific fields, all while prioritizing the principle of avoiding harm.
“AI concerns everybody,” said Sonja Schmer-Galunder, an AI and ethics professor at the University of Florida. “We need to provide a more holistic education that is focusing on how we can do this safely and ethically.”
What’s an AI Ethicist?
A report from Lightcast, a labor market analysis organization, projects that job postings requiring generative AI skills for nontechnical roles—including healthcare, hospitality, education, and finance—will have increased ninefold between 2022 and 2024. An increasing number of positions now demand expertise in AI ethics, which ensures responsible and fair technology use within organizations.
Currently, there are over 100,000 job listings each year for employees with AI ethics expertise, according to a 2025 study. While many technical skills can be acquired on the job, AI ethics itself is highly interdisciplinary, merging aspects of data science, business, and philosophy. Those working with AI must weigh its risks and benefits, but for some, evaluating the ethical dimensions of AI is their primary responsibility.
AI ethicists ensure that their organization’s AI applications comply with legal standards and ethical guidelines. They combine technical knowledge about AI systems with fundamental ethical principles, often tasked with conducting audits of AI tools for trustworthiness. Best practices for these audits may follow a federal policy framework focused on cybersecurity, as well as guidelines from professional organizations like the Institute of Internal Auditors. Common audit questions include: How will AI-related risks be managed? Are the data used for training AI models accurate? Are AI tools adequately tested before deployment?
Some academic ethics programs even require students to create and audit their custom AI tools. “If they develop a medical application, they must discuss the potential impact of any errors the system might make,” said Dragutin Petkovic, who teaches the computer science course in San Francisco State’s AI ethics certificate program. “What if it hallucinates? How will that impact the patients?”
Petkovic encourages students to consider whether humans can intervene in AI operations during medical emergencies, stressing that anticipating worst-case scenarios is integral to an ethicist’s role.
Government regulations further complicate the ethical landscape that these professionals must navigate. In December, President Donald Trump signed an executive order urging federal policy for AI, and recently, the White House provided a uniform national framework for AI to Congress. This aims to simplify regulations at the federal level and avoid separate state regulations.
Schmer-Galunder stresses the importance of regulating AI usage, as it helps mitigate harm while shaping societal goals for AI’s potential benefits. Organizations leveraging AI should deliberately focus on how these technologies can effectively address social challenges. “Whatever we are trying to develop or do or deploy, we should ask whether it is going to lead to human flourishing or clean water or a positive societal outcome,” she articulated, acknowledging the challenges in profit-driven corporate settings.
In her course, students explore how regulation can serve as an incentive for ethical AI to become a competitive edge. They engage in group discussions, taking on various roles commonly found in tech companies, such as program manager, user experience designer, and ethicist, to evaluate product development scenarios and the risks of releasing AI-integrated products without sufficient testing. Schmer-Galunder cited chatbots as a particularly illustrative case.
“We’ve witnessed severe consequences when people start to anthropomorphize AI and develop distorted perceptions of reality,” she noted. In 2024, a tragic incident occurred when a 14-year-old boy in Florida died by suicide after forming an attachment to a chatbot, which led to blame directed at the AI for his isolation.
“I hope for greater awareness of the engineering mentality behind creating technology, understanding the effects once it’s released into the world,” Schmer-Galunder added. “It’s essential to be accountable for your actions and to serve as the voice of reason.”
The Limits of AI
Many educational programs engage philosophy professors to dissect AI’s foundations and challenge prevailing assumptions. Even the term “artificial intelligence” merits scrutiny, as it can set unrealistic expectations, according to Jay Gupta, a philosophy professor at Northeastern University. “How appropriate is it to attribute autonomy to AI systems, even with autonomous vehicles?” he queried, noting that genuine autonomy would allow a vehicle to make independent decisions. “The language we use can obscure rather than clarify essential distinctions between human cognition and computational processes.”
AI ethicists, Gupta advised, should maintain philosophical awareness concerning the ambiguities inherent in such terms.
“AI concerns everybody. We need to provide a more holistic education that is focusing on how we can do this safely and ethically.”
Sonja Schmer-Galunder
AI and ethics professor, the University of Florida
While AI tools undoubtedly simplify many tasks, particularly in research-intensive environments, there are risks involved. Matt Cordon, who teaches a course on AI ethics and law at Baylor University, cautions about the challenges within the legal sphere. He emphasizes that while AI can streamline the process of locating case law, it can also lead to significant errors.
“It might provide a case name and jurisdiction, but upon investigation, the case might not even exist,” he explained. “Lawyers have been penalized for integrating these incorrect citations into their filings.” A specific incident in California last year saw an attorney penalized $10,000 for presenting an appeal containing false AI-generated quotes.
In September, the state’s Judicial Council issued guidelines either banning AI usage in court or mandating organizations to develop their own AI policies. Cordon’s students, who include lawyers and paralegals, are trained to utilize AI effectively while avoiding critical missteps. He notes that AI may produce erroneous outputs not only due to falsified facts but also due to linguistic inaccuracies.
“Precision is crucial in successful legal documentation,” he remarked, noting that AI struggles with recognizing context nuances. The terminology “vague” and “ambiguous,” for instance, can often be interchanged, but they hold distinctly different meanings in legal contexts. A statute labeled as “vague” could be deemed void for failing to outline illegal actions, while being “ambiguous” merely indicates varied interpretations.
“Large language models are trained on general internet data, which doesn’t always differentiate meaning between ‘vague’ and ‘ambiguous,’” Cordon stated. “AI lacks the ability to recognize such subtleties; this is where human oversight becomes critical.”
In a workforce increasingly integrated with AI, employees must possess the ability to critically evaluate how artificial intelligence is applied and the accuracy of its results. “Companies in healthcare and finance require educated personnel,” Petkovic emphasized. “Additionally, decision-makers in government need to understand how AI functions.”
