The irony with statements like these is that they are themselves ad-hoc ethical statements. Whatever "reasonable middle ground" you find, you'd have to make lo

The irony with statements like these is that they are themselves ad-hoc ethical statements. Whatever "reasonable middle ground" you find, you'd have to make logically sound ethical arguments. This is what these people do for a living, and they are very well trained in those matters. As programmers and engineers we are also trained in logic, use it every day. But that typically pales in comparison of what philosophers do. They deal with much richer logical systems and can precisely apply them to statements and arguments. When applied to ethics, they typically end up with much more radical conclusions that we are dealing with here. In fact the resulting initiatives are already softened compromises and a "reasonable middle ground" before it even clashes with policy making.