A Lack of Restraint

It always perplexes me when I see industries or professional bodies asking governments institute regulatory frameworks for them.  I mean, why can't they do that for themselves?  Why are they apparently incapable of developing a series of ethical constraints upon themselves to guide their work?  I mean, it isn't difficult - most individuals are perfectly capable of defining an individual moral code by which they live, so why is it apparently so difficult of organisations?  Not that I'm saying that governments shouldn't be creating regulatory frameworks, it is, after all, one of the primary functions of government.   I'm just puzzled as to why these organisations can't make a start on such measures themselves.  Most recently, we've had various prominent figures in the AI industry making pleas for regulation of their work, in order to stop their creations from destroying humanity.  Which begs the obvious question: if you think that what you are doing is so dangerous, why don't you simply stop doing it yourselves?  The answer, of course, is because if they did that, then they wouldn't be getting all those billions of dollars of investment for their over-valued companies and they just can't bring themselves to forgo the prospect of all that cash and the prospect of future profits.  

In other words, like psychopaths, they have no moral constraints.  They just can't help themselves.  They are driven, primarily, by greed.  Which isn't just an indictment of them, but of modern capitalism in general - it promotes the idea that the profit motive outweighs all other considerations.  Even, apparently, the potential extinction of humanity.  If it isn't AI bosses creating potentially hazardous models in pursuit of profit, then it's the fossil fuel industry happily opposing green energy and encouraging the increased use of its toxic products regardless of the damage they are causing to the environment.  Because, Hell, who cares about the long-term?  In the long run, as Keynes observed, we're all dead, so it isn't going to be our problem.  (Which is precisely the mentality that lumbered us with Brexit - a bunch of superannuated old fogies voting to leave the EU without regard for the consequences because they wouldn't be around to see them.  They just wanted that quick victory so that they could shuffle off this mortal coil happy that they'd pissed on those bloody long haired, lefty, woke youngsters).  So, they all want to abdicate their responsibilities in favour of having regulation imposed upon them by government - which they can then rail against and blame for those falls in profits and/or lack of investment.  It gives them a 'Get Out of Jail Fee' card with regard to shareholders and investors, rather than being born of any real concerns about public safety.  Well, come the revolution, comrades...