With such ubiquity comes power and influence. And along with the technology’s benefits come worries over privacy and personal freedom. Yes, AI can take some of the time and effort out of decision-making. But if you are a woman, a person of color, or a member of some other unlucky marginalized group, it has the ability to codify and worsen the inequalities you already face. This darker side of AI has led policymakers such as U.S. Senator Kamala Harris to advocate for more careful consideration of the technology’s risks.

Meanwhile, the companies on the front lines of AI development and deployment have been very vocal about reassuring the public that they’ll deploy the technology ethically. These proclamations have elicited great fanfare. When Google acquired DeepMind of AlphaGo fame in 2014, DeepMind notoriously required them to establish an ethics board. In 2016, Facebook, Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft joined Google and DeepMind as founding members of the Partnership on AI–intended as a link between public and private discussions on AI’s social and ethical ramifications. Apple tardily joined the partnership in early 2017, somehow, as a founding member. And Google long had the motto “Don’t be evil,” until it was unceremoniously dropped earlier this year.

Amid the storm of praise whipped up by enthusiastic public relations professionals, it’s very easy to forget just who it is we are praising and what we are praising them for. Each and every one of these companies, despite their mottos and vociferous declarations, have primary imperatives to make money, not friends. Most of their lofty ambitions have yet to materialize in the public domain in any tangible form.

That is not to say that companies should not voice concerns over the ethical ramifications of their work. To do so is commendable; leading companies in other emerging industries should take note. But we should be wary of letting tech companies become the only or loudest voice in the discussion about the ethical and social implications of AI.

That’s because the early bird really does get the worm. By letting tech companies speak first and loudest, we let them frame the debate and allow them to decide what constitutes a problem. In doing so, we give them free rein to shape the discussion in ways that reflect their own priorities and biases.

Such deference is all the more troubling given that the makeup and output of many of the companies’ ethics boards have been kept behind boardroom doors. Google’s DeepMind ethics board was formed nearly five years ago, and the names of its members have yet to be publicly released.