Only about one percent of the labor force has a Phd qualification. However, a large majority of them tend to lack basic ethical skills and usually come with a degree of arrogance. This is further exacerbated in fields like data science and AI where huge amounts of training data is involved. In data ethics, it is really the people and data that is the issue, not so much the intended system. Unless the Phd specialism is in ethics, they rarely have a formal ethics course. And, often their plagiarism gets undetected. It is usually years later that someone notices the issue with an academic piece of work. Most Phd people are also seething in arrogance. But, some how lack the basic practical skills in the workplace for which teams of engineers are required as their support function. Considering only a handful only ever complete their Phds, is it any wonder why it has not born fruits in the practical world outside of academia. We can even see research work that amounts to no where. Almost 80% of all published research work coming out of academic institutions amounts to nothing. As a result, the return on investment for a Phd is quite low outside of academia. In fact, most highly rated research-led institutions have poor quality of teaching. A fresh Phd graduate has outdated practical skills. Generative AI and LLM have shown that Phd do in fact lack basic data ethics skills where there is a complete lack of transparency, fairness, accountability for any models that they produce and make available to the community. In fact, explainable AI in most cases is seen as an afterthought in many organizations and where biases in machine learning models is typically the norm. No one bothers to question a Phd person in academia or the practical world with little to no accountability where they are involved in development standards and codes of conduct for other people. If AI needs to progress ethically, it needs to question the ethical background of the people employed to design and produce such systems. The ugly truth seems to be an obvious one. A Phd individual is unethical and unqualified by the very nature of being human and with their set of biases. And, why even bother hiring a practically inept person with Phd compared to someone with decades of practical experience.
