What would this "very real" way be? Different people have widely different objective functions they are trying to maximize. The expectation that we should always attempt to pursue cosmic justice is completely unrealistic.

We already have a proper way of enforcing "very real" ways to curtail abuses, it's called passing laws.

There probably is a place for serious, proper discussion of what the proper working ethics for a software engineer are, but it's nowhere near as preminent as the zeitgeist is suggesting.

And how is it decided what should become illegal? Just passing laws banning unethical things? Now we are back to square one deciding what is and isn't ethical.

Every system dealing in dichotomies (including binary) will eventually fail in reality, which always is more nuanced. Exactly how it fails depends on our knowledge, biases and our ability to account for them.

The problem is that flawed, biased AI systems are presented as neutral and fair, when they can never be. Ethics is what you get when you genuinely care about other peoples reality, not just following the law.