It may not be clear, but I find "Following the incentives" to be the modern equivalent of "I was just following orders." I.e. the scapegoat of cowards, and the lubricant of the conscience of those with more money than sense.
One example that most seem to connect with is targeted advertising. This is where the search and social media feeds ended up following the incentives. The goal was to maximize profit, which mean selling ads, and humans unleashed an algorithm to do that, which followed the incentives and hill climbed to push users' anxiety and fear buttons, because that drove up engagement and ad dollars. Search was a bit different, but followed the same pattern. Today's search results are so very bad and largely gamed.