Abstract: With its wide range of application scenarios, ChatGPT can effectively empower product research and development, intelligent manufacturing, education, content production, etc., which has a far-reaching impact on promotion of industrial upgrading, development of social productivity, and improvement of production tools. However, ethical risks associated with rapid development of AI in the era of digital intelligence have aroused concern from all sides. As an important guarantee to ensure sustainable and healthy development of the science and technology activities of AI enterprises, the ethical governance of government in science and technology is of key importance to promote the resolution of social risks such as algorithmic bias and discrimination, data security challenges, and misuse of computing power, as well as to promote human well-being via science and technology innovation. Based on institutional theory, the study took listed AI enterprises on the main board of A-shares in China as the research object to test the effect and mechanism of the ethical governance of government in science and technology on science and technology for social good of AI enterprises. As the results have shown, (1) The ethical governance of government in science and technology as a formal institution is positively associated with science and technology for social good of AI enterprises; (2) Social trust and political connection as informal institutions play moderating roles in the relationship between the ethical governance of government in science and technology and science and technology for social good of AI enterprises, showing the overlapping effect of informal institutions in collaboration with the ethical governance of government in science and technology on driving science and technology for social good of AI enterprises; (3) The results of heterogeneity test indicate that the ethical governance of government in science and technology has a more significant effect on improving science and technology for social good of AI enterprises in samples with high regional Confucianism, large sizes, and low executive equity incentives. Based on above, the study provides new perspectives on driving corporate science and technology for social good in the era of digital intelligence and empirical insights for the government and enterprises to address ethical risks of AI and promote human well-being, bridging the gap of prior research that ignores the critical influence of science and technology ethics policies on corporate science and technology for social good in government-dominated formal systems. Moreover, from practical perspectives, the government should accelerate the process of the ethical governance of science and technology in the field of AI, strengthen the safety bottom line, promote AI enterprises to build explainable AI, and protect user privacy and data security. Meanwhile, the government needs to strengthen the construction of agile governance capacity, led by the government to create a dynamic linkage ecosystem with the participation of enterprises, academics, news media, and other diversified subjects, to enhance the government’s forward-looking governance level of ethical risks of AI. In response to the ethical governance of government in science and technology, which includes the principles of promoting human well-being and controlling risks reasonably, AI enterprises, under the guidance of regulations and regulatory policies, take the initiative to implement self-governance and self-regulation actions such as integrating ethics into corporate culture and values, incorporating ethical values into the design of products/services, and introducing ethical risk assessment mechanisms for AI products/services, so as to realize ethical business decision-making and take into account both short-term and long-term interests, thus promoting science and technology for social good.