“His irregular recusal practice in oil and gas industry-related cases is undermining public confidence in the impartiality of the Court. They could not occur were he compelled to adhere to enforceable ethics standards against adjudicating cases where he has financial interests or the appearance of a conflict of interest where his impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” the groups wrote.
(The Illustration above is from David Balfour and while not entirely appropriate — Who doesn’t like a good sword fight!)
Elon Musk has strong opinions about the upcoming movie, The Odyssey.
I’m sure a lot of people do.
Now, there are three ways that people gain expertise about a subject.
First, they can have direct experience. For instance in having an opinion about a movie you could have directed on acted in one or perhaps even produced one.
Secondly, you can have developed an expertise by learning. You can take courses in acting and directing. You could study and read screenplays, etc.
Thirdly, you can contemplate the topic. This isn’t by any means bloviating like an old White man holding forth n a bar about the thousands of things he knows nothing about. This is where you actually think. You know, read some articles, try to understand more than you did before. Figure out what is important in the subject and use your thought on it creatively.
As far as I can tell, Musk has no experience in movies, has done no studies associated with the subject and hasn’t given a moment’s thought to the subject.
He has simply stated an opinion.
Now, I realize he has a great deal of money. But does that by itself make an opinion newsworthy? Really?
There are countless people who can hold themselves out as experts on movies.
Gloria Caulfield, President of the Lake Nona Institute and Vice President of Strategic Alliances at Tavistock President of the Lake Nona Institute and Vice President of Strategic Alliances at Tavistock was a speaker at commencement and was loudly and repeatedly booed for praising AI.
This is one student’s response as reported in a local newspaper:
“To stand in front of a graduating class of artists and communicators and discuss Jeff Bezos and Howard Schultz, is to spit on our efforts to flip the script. I’m embarrassed to have had to endure the most embarrassing, unskippable, tone-deaf, ad-like commencement. Boo to AI and boo to your agenda,” Eletr told Orlando Weekly.
And he is absolutely right. We hear this nonsense constantly — “new industrial revolution” “cutting edge,” “game changing,” “disruptive,” and then of course a truly incredible mountain of praise for the tech bros who stand to make trillions of dollars if only they can render virtually all of humanity obsolete.
All I see is AI slop on the internet and regular failure and disaster in deployment.
How can there be such constant unquestioning, sky-high praise, while at the same time the evidence of the current news and our own eyes shows just the opposite?
“After a brief rant about his interest in beautification, Trump shifted his focus from the issue at hand to the journalist who dared to ask why he’s so invested in diversions.
“It’s such a stupid question that you asked,” the Republican whined before suggesting that Scott might “understand dirt” better than he does. Trump said he considers Scott to be “one of the worst reporters” and a “horror show,” before adding he also considers ABC to be “fake.”
The president concluded, “A question like that is a disgrace to our country.”
A Gentleman has a Duty.
Every man has a duty as a gentleman to act with dignity and kindness toward other human beings.
The leader of our current regime does not believe that this is necessary. In fact, I would argue that he is a boor and a cad, not a gentleman.
She asked a completely legitimate question and he responded like a dictator from a banana republic.
The article, which I strongly recommend, goes on to document his other crudities with women. Aside from the hideous maga faithful, intelligent human beings will discern a pattern of contempt for women.
This is wrong.
We need to return to the days when our leaders could speak to the press as educated, intelligent human beings with some element of culture and dignity.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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