I think the best case scenario for AI ethics is that those researchers work to develop processing & metrics to ensure AI systems are fair. The current model seems overwhelmingly adversarial where AI researches do X and then the ethics researches come in an indicate problems P, Q, R. I'm curious how much internal communication there is between the ethics department and the AI departments. Instead of doing research on how the datasets are biased or something of that sort, it seems more fruitful to help researches develop balanced and fair datasets. AI is going to develop yes or yes. The best case scenario is that AI ethics is a first class concern for those researchers and is factored into their development rather than being a case of "look at this gross, unethical behavior in this model!"

Perhaps the new group won't confuse ethics with activism.