The National Institutes of Health are supposed to be phasing out the use of Cats in cruel and fatal experimentation but that does not appear to be the case.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/03/nih-funds-cat-experiments
Except with cats (kittens).
Let’s get on with it and finally phase out cat experimentation!
James Alan Pilant
This is specifically aimed at my readers from China!
I’m curious. I’m getting hundred of hits from people in China!
So, if you don’t mind a few questions?
Are you a college class or something along those lines??
Would you like to send specific inquiries? I wouldn’t mind!
Tell me about yourselves!! I can run a translator if you like.
Thanks!
James Alan Pilant
“Bleak House is considered by some authorities to be Dickens finest novel.”
And so with the words above I began my last post.
“Oh, you say you didn’t see it?”
Well, no one did. The WordPress posting program ate it and all the writing I did on the subject.
It wasn’t a great post, sort of average, but I liked it and I thought I made some good points.
Losing an essay like I just did makes me unhappy.
You see I am posting in a sort of war zone.
Right now, probably in America, some kid or some adult alone in a basement somewhere is creating thirty or forty business ethics articles a day using AI. And he is doing it to make money usually off of advertising. (I don’t charge anything or make any money off of my posts.) The AI knows all about business ethics because it vacuumed up all the material on business ethics it could find on the Internet and that included the close to three thousand of my essays. This was all copyrighted material but in the United States, massive intellectual theft is another gift to the tech bros so they can be worth many billions of dollars.
Let’s say you ask a question about “corporate responsibility.” You run a search and the first thing that comes up is CHATGP which knows all about business ethics from vacuuming up all the articles including mine on the Internet. Anything I wrote will be down the page and you probably won’t make it that far.
Do you think there is something fundamentally wrong with stealing both my work and then making it unlikely anyone will read my current efforts? I do.
Hundreds of people have at one time or another read one of my blog postings. My last blog post got five hits.
And no one, and I mean no one, seems to have the guts to label an AI warning on postings or anywhere else. That labeling would seem to be a fundamentally necessary step in justice for actual writers. So, when you look at my posts you don’t know whether an AI wrote it or not. (It didn’t.)
I have learned after listening to audio from You Tube and reading on the web the signs of an AI doing its mediocre dance because most of this material is nonsense or a sort of a half done excuse for research or knowledge. But how would most people know?
Is this how it all ends? My writing becomes a source of AI bots and I, the original writer, lives unread and unmourned?
I guess so.
Well, tomorrow, I will climb back on the horse and get my Bleak House article written.
I’m just a man, not an AI but my soul and my honor demand that I persist.
James Alan Pilant
(From the book, “The Wonder Clock”)
I was watching a recently made documentary on the Mt. St. Helens eruption. It has been some twenty years.
I was astonished to see many interviews of people who believed that the scientists’ warnings were just nonsense. “Nothin’ is going to happen!” Stated one skeptic firmly.
(A cathedral of France now long gone.)
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Americans have questioned science and technology all during the various developments. My favorite anti-science rant was a doubter who did not believe that trains could ever reach the fantastic speed of twenty miles an hour because the air pressure of such a speed would make it impossible for humans to breath. That was from the 1820’s but I still see this sort of thing. Recently, I’ve seen new stories about not ever being able to settle Mars, or travel to Proxima Centauri, or break the light barrier. And they might be right, but we have accomplished so much that in the past seemed impossible.
I have always had a soft spot for science and scientists. They are truth seekers and I very much respect truth seeking. It is an almost holy endeavor, the truth. And we live in a time where lies and misconceptions are elbowing many well know facts out of the way.
For instance —
Societies that function on merit based leadership and advancement are completely superior to societies based on connections and relationships. Loyalty is important but only up to a point. Greater loyalties to one’s nation or the concept of righteousness are important to a well lived life. I consider those facts and I think I can prove them if called upon.
And because I believe in these things, I keep posting, although it often seems to make little difference.
Well, let us cast our bread upon the water having faith in the better angels of our nature.
James Alan Pilant
This week marks sixteen years of me owning and posting on this Blog, Pilant’s Business Ethics.
When I started I was teaching both online and in the classroom. My son was a teenager and I was still married. It seems a whole world away.
And now, the world seems so dark and dangerous as American democracy is under attack and whether or not, our representative government survives will be seen in the next couple of years.
But I should just bask in the fact that I have persevered so long and with some success.
That you all, my kind readers!
James Alan Pilant
I’ve missed posting for several days and I apologize. My allergies result in my face being swollen among other symptoms and I have difficulty concentrating enough to write intelligently.
I’m feeling a little better today and will see about posting tonight.
(I saw the news about the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and was delighted.)
You have no idea how much I appreciate you, my kind and intelligent readers.
James Alan Pilant
(I’m getting a little old.)
Taiwan is claimed by China under a sort of “lost province” narrative, which I don’t buy into.
So, bearing that in mind, should Hammer Lee (a kind of Marvel Superhero name – got to give credit, that is one great name!) have acquired a Chinese built robot dog to patrol the streets of the city of Taipei. It might seem to the casual observer that the government has imported a artificial threat able to gather useful information for later use in an invasion.
Perhaps if this situation had happened in an episode of the Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits, the mechanical infiltrator would fall in love with a beautiful police officer in Taipei and renounce its allegiance to the Chinese Superpower. In movies and television, robots are always suckers for romance and a pretty face.
In his defense, Hammer says the surveillance camera system is of Taiwanese design. I don’t find that very convincing. The Chinese are famous for putting their own spin (and devices) in what seems like relatively benign items. And this thing looks in no way benign. Big metal dogs look daunting to me and we are seeing a lot canine inspired war machines in a number of nations.
What I find really odd about this whole thing is that Taiwan is well known as a manufacturer and international innovator in building robots. I freely admit their designs (as far as I could see) are humanoid and they may not have any dogs. But I don’t see why you couldn’t use an upright human style robot to do the same job.
The really scary thing about this is the idea of robots patrolling our streets here in the United States. Our federal government is currently bizarrely incompetent and I don’t want them to have any new toys they can misuse.
James Alan Pilant
(It is highly likely this engraving of 19th Century London will be found inappropriate by many readers. In response, I would respectfully ask, “What chances do you think there are of me finding a non copyright protected image of a Chinese military robot dog or any robot dog for that matter?” Just enjoy the picture.)
Helen Davidson and Jason Tzu Kuan Lu reporting for The Guardian in an article: Taipei City council in the dog house over Chinese-made patrol robot.
Taipei City council has come under fire after admitting that a robot dog it bought to help patrol city streets using surveillance cameras was made by a Chinese companylinked to the Chinese military.
Hammer Lee, the deputy mayor of Taiwan’s capital, introduced a “new patrol partner” for the management and repair of pedestrian areas in a post on Facebook on Tuesday.
“This robot, equipped with an optical panoramic survey system, can create 360-degree images, accurately locate facilities, and even automatically report missing items,” Lee said, noting its ability to “accumulate comprehensive data”.
Well, not quite so many as 1.4 million, at least not yet. That is the implied number. There have been 414 reports of engine failure and these are significant. They imply that we could be looking at an endemic problems that is only now be revealed.
(Mythological beasts from a lower plane of Hell, that may also require a probe into their warranties.)
So, I give you my usual advice. That is – let the story and the investigations develop and over time the truth will be revealed.
Now, I must admit we live in strange times. Our current regime is very pro-corporation and this inquiry and its possible legal consequences could simply disappear.
You might say – “James, that is a horrible libel on our elected current regime. They wouldn’t sell their honor or the lives of their fellow Americans for money.” As of this date a very large number of investigations have already ceased, and in many more situations, the rules changed to favor industry. Even now selling or renting or drilling on the precious resource of the American people, public lands and our parks, has become more and more a reality.
Well, we will see what happens.
(But if the investigation is stopped or disappeared, I will report it on this site. jp)
In an article published in Reuters, entitled: US probes into more than 1.4 million Honda vehicles over engine failure, there seems to be some concern over faulty engines in Honda vehicles.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-probes-more-1-4-082924014.html
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is opening a probe into more than 1.4 million Honda vehicles sold in the United States over concerns that connecting rod bearing failures in their engines could lead to complete engine failure.
In a letter dated August 20, the regulator said it received 414 reports of the issue in various Honda and Acura vehicles’ 3.5-liter V6 engine.
…
The investigation covers 2018-2020 model year Acura TLX, 2016-2020 Acura MDX, 2016-2020 Honda Pilot, 2018-2020 Honda Odyssey, and 2017-2019 Honda Ridgeline vehicles.
In 2024, the agency probed 1.4 million Honda vehicles on reports of serious engine issues following the Japanese automaker recalling 249,000 vehicles in November 2023.
Let’s hope it is just a few engines.
What are the business ethics here? It is wrong to sell defective vehicles. Those who have made purchased by mischance such defective vehicles should be made whole by repairs, new vehicles or money damages. There is no need for an in-depth analysis of Shareholder rights or Corporate citizenship, our laws on defective sales are sufficient for this situation.
For twenty or thirty years, we’ve seen film and television with characters like robots and computers with personalities. These have often been good entertainment.
Sometimes they combined these AI like characteristics with supernatural powers. This requires a certain suspension of disbelief but in the interest of a good story, I have often made that sacrifice.
(Do you believe in talking rabbits, bottles marked “drink me,” or AI’s ability to make sports predictions?)
But do people believe that AI has supernatural powers?
Here we have an article telling who is going to win the next Super Bowls by asking ChatGPT. It is very similar to having your horoscope read, throwing some dice or throwing the bones as in Scandinavian practice or maybe doing some magical writing, you know, putting pen to paper, looking away, writing frantically and seeing if your magical powers manifest.
I strongly suspect someone somewhere is taking this nonsense seriously.
In a Story by List Wire entitled: ChatGPT predicts the next 20 Super Bowl champions in the NFL, does your team win it all?
https://sports.yahoo.com/article/chatgpt-predicts-next-20-super-150033619.html
According to ChatGPT’s A.I., here are the teams predicted to win the next 20 Super Bowls in the NFL. …
And then it has a list.
Once again, let me be clear. This is nonsense. AI is not a predictor of sports outcomes anymore than a magic 8 ball or a Ouija Board.
I think most people know this. I hope so anyway. But sometimes reading the press reports on AI and its developing capabilities that there are those that think that it has or will have god-like capabilities.
For instance, we have the concept of a Technological Singularity. Here are my friends at Wikipedia attempting to define the term:
The technological singularity—or simply the singularity[1]—is a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth becomes alien to humans, uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable consequences for human civilization.[2][3] According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis, I. J. Good‘s intelligence explosion model of 1965, an upgradable intelligent agent could eventually enter a positive feedback loop of successive self-improvement cycles; more intelligent generations would appear more and more rapidly, causing a rapid increase in intelligence that culminates in a powerful superintelligence, far surpassing human intelligence.[4]
Now, that sucker might predict some foot ball games — and on the down side, kill all of humanity. But, it would be in a real and strange way, magical – at least in terms of human perception.
I seem to recall, that great legend of science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke, saying that to a more primitive civilization, the advances of technology have the appearance of magic (or words to that effect).
Maybe we are on the road to something like that?
But let me reassure you that based on my training and my experience, currently AI has no predictive powers. That can change but I have seen nothing that leads me to believe anything of that nature has happened or is likely to happen. Not soon.
James Alan Pilant
We live in a profoundly unethical time under a profoundly unethical federal government which is in the process of becoming a totalitarian regime.
We are much of the way there and Rachel Maddow is telling us in the article listed below that a key part of the structure of that regime is already in place.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/rachel-maddow-warns-americans-1-134807335.html
(Directly quoted from the article above.) She then put it even more bluntly: “We have a consolidating dictatorship in our country.” While the MSNBC host went on to acknowledge that this might sound “melodramatic,” Maddow noted the U.S. now seems to have its own “secret police,” which is commonplace across dictatorships, in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency under Trump. “A massive, anonymous, unbadged — literally masked — totally unaccountable internal police force that apparently has infinite funding but no identifiable leadership,” said Maddow. “And they act in ways designed to instill maximum fear and use maximum force.” (End of quote.)
I agree with her on this point. And we should all be concerned.
But why am I, a writer on business ethics, taking up this subject. Isn’t it just politics?
I wish it were but as the regime spirals into more and more open criminality, it is having a dramatic effect on the economy. When I say criminality, I am talking about thinly discussed bribes and charges for access and many other illegal acts.
It may be soon that speaking as I am may carry civil or criminal penalties and I have noticed that many moral people have gone silent as they see the political apparatus being constructed. No doubt they consider silence better than risk but honor is more important than life itself and it is vital to live as human beings standing tall than to crawl like a worm before a hideously deformed government.
Business ethics relies on reason, logic and evidence. These are all becoming scarce commodities under the trash talk of our current regime.
So, I write about our political downfall and current crisis.
It is only right that I do so.
James Alan Pilant
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.