Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual (human) rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.
I am very unhappy today. I haven’t posted very much lately because I have some ideas percolating in my mind.
I have been wanting to write a major piece on the fact that everyone in politics seems to talk up the “free market” while working very hard to make sure that there is little or no free market activity in countless fields of ende3avor. I wanted to talk about the necessary elements for a free market and how government action is necessary to prevent combinations and price fixing.
(Our current national leadership.)
I also want to severely criticize business schools for their nonsensical devotion to the idea that in some strange way, the teachings of business are generally applicable in all industries and businesses. They are not. An understanding of how, why and a historical understanding of a business is absolutely essential to a successful leadership and day to day running of a company. Any examination of American movies and Boeing aircraft reveal the folly of a general business set of teachings applied where it simply does not belong. And I will get to it. It is a difficult subject.
No, today is a bad, bad day. Jimmy Kimmel has been removed from the air by a state sponsored form of censorship. The FCC threatened to pull broadcast licenses and the network complied with their demands.
These last twenty four hours have changed our futures. If this government, incompetent and pitiful as its is, can successfully tell media companies what is and is not acceptable, we have little chance of having fair election or even intelligent national discussion.
This is a nail in the coffin of democracy.
It is very painful for me to see the end of the American experiment in representative democracy, and I will be in mourning for some days.
I find it hard to believe that that coming elections in 2026 will be anything but a rigged farce and that will be the final act in America’s story.
After that we will live in some kind of 4th Reich.
Artificial Intelligence requires the continuous monitoring of humans to work.
A line from the article I quote below is very much on point:
“AI isn’t magic; it’s a pyramid scheme of human labor,” …
It is a truly marvelous quote, “a pyramid scheme of human labor.”
I read about AI every day. It is a depressing and controversial topic. I want to be able to talk and discuss this subject intelligently but there is so little agreement on many aspects of the thing.
Is is extremely shocking to find that AI’s require continuous human supervision. (My emphasis.) This really came out of left field. Since I had just a few days ago talked about the possibility of AI attaining demi-god like levels of intelligence and awareness. The article linked to below gives one the impression of a demi-god alright, a demi-god of pitiful mediocrity. that will tell you that if your cheese doesn’t stick to the pizza that you can fix it with glue.
I am disappointed in myself. I should not have been surprised. I teach and write about ethics and morality in business. AI’s have no background in ethics or morality. They also lack experience of life.
A human being in terms of its ethical life and ability to make moral decisions is completely superior to any current AI and is likely to continue that superiority for decades to come.
What are the implications of AI requiring continuous human intervention?
Let’s be utterly simple. AI’s judged by human standards are nuts. They are crazy and will do crazy things if unmonitored.
Does that scare you because it frightens me? What are our lives going to be like when these things run our banks, our businesses, our government offices and so on and so on down to the toaster in your kitchen?
There was a science fiction movie called “Forbidden Planet” where the previous inhabitants of a distant planet had been massacred by their own unconscious fears, “monsters from the id.” I wonder if our AI’s also manifest destructive tendencies. We do know that they suffer from “hallucinations.” (A topic for another time.)
I’ve concerns and I’m sharing them with you, my kind readers.
I hope that you don’t mind that I am sharing my pursuit of the facts as I am in the middle of the search. This is an immense subject with vast ramifications and I am working hard to wrap my mind around it.
Stay Tuned.
James Alan Pilant
Varsha Bansal writing for the Guardian has a a news story entitled: How thousands of ‘overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI to seem smart.
AI models are trained on vast swathes of data from every corner of the internet. Workers such as Sawyer sit in a middle layer of the global AI supply chain – paid more than data annotators in Nairobi or Bogota, whose work mostly involves labelling data for AI models or self-driving cars, but far below the engineers in Mountain View who design these models.
Despite their significant contributions to these AI models, which would perhaps hallucinate if not for these quality control editors, these workers feel hidden.
“AI isn’t magic; it’s a pyramid scheme of human labor,” said Adio Dinika, a researcher at the Distributed AI Research Institute based in Bremen, Germany. “These raters are the middle rung: invisible, essential and expendable.”
(An additional not of considerable importance.) Varsha Bansal, who wrote the article I linked to above did not just write a regular news article but an inspired and intricate account of a very difficult subject. You should read the article in full and read her work whenever possible. She knows her subject well.
Let me state firmly at the beginning of this essay, I don’t know if anyone can make any sense of AI.
If you journey across the Internet, there are a vast number of explanatory articles and a truly amazing variety of claims made about AI. You can find articles and quote for almost any point of view.
(The coming edifice of AI according to its propagandists.)
Let me tell you what we do know.
Number One, it destroys jobs. I have seen estimates of 85,000 jobs destroyed over the last year. A very fascinating question that comes from this: “Does AI adequately replace a human being in a job?” And let me tell you, I have real doubts. I see a lot of an attitude you might call, “Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead,” when it comes to AI. For many it seems that whether is works well is beside the point if we can just get rid of so many jobs.
Number Two, everything that AI has done so far can be described as mediocre or barely adequate. AI is building an Internet of useless garbage and while it does simple things well, claims of Ph.D. level intelligence have never been successfully demonstrated.
Number Three, “our” government is rushing this technology into nation wide use without any real understanding of what it is and what it does. It may well be that this government’s profound stupidity and lack of intelligent thought is leading to a technological revolution they simply don’t get.
Number Four, corporations see a golden opportunity to get rid of millions upon millions of workers and are so pleased with this concept, every sign of danger, economic damage and just whether or not the thing works are just being ignored. The lack of concern in the business community for the likely problems with this new untried technology is astonishing. It is just like the fabled lemmings running off a cliff.
Number Five, we are being force fed AI. It doesn’t matter whether you want it or not, you’re getting it. A massive conspiracy between government and business has resulted in a situation where you are completely unprotected from AI in anything you buy, rent or come near. I experienced this when Office 365 added AI to my subscription for thirty dollars added to my charges with no other option available, just take it or leave it.
Number Six, these three entities of government, business and the tech bros are expecting a massive and unprecedented increase in their power because of AI. (My emphasis, jp) It is truly frightening.
Number Seven, the profits from this AI revolution will be counted not in billions of dollars but in trillions upon trillions of dollars. The main reason this is all being so rushed is the naked greed for all this money. It is expected to be the most profitable technological change in history. This will have profound effects on all of our lives.
There is something horrible about writing or talking about AI. It lends itself to exaggeration. We are continually told about AI with adjectives like revolutionary, greatest in history, most significant, world changing, … and I can just keep on going. (I would like to see just one article about AI with mundane, commonly used adjectives.)
And as I have written over and over again on this site, nobody and I mean nobody, understands AI or what is going to happen.
Yes, that’s right, “the greatest engine of progress.” Does she understand the significance? Of course not, This is just vapid word use in the hope of sounding in some way meaningful.
But there’s more. Here, let me quote from a Rolling Stone article authored by Miles Klee.
This was hardly the only nonsense uttered at the 40-minute press briefing, which was light on policy specifics but heavy on praise for the AI industry as a whole. David Sacks, the White House czar of AI and cryptocurrency as well as a Musk and Thiel ally, adopted the Cabinet technique of shamelessly flattering his boss by saying that a July 23 speech by the president was “the most important speech that’s been given on AI by any official.” In that speech, at a “Winning the AI Race” event, Trump digressively rambled about tariffs, transgender women in sports, California car emissions rules, and “getting rid of woke.” He also mentioned that he didn’t care for the term “artificial intelligence,” explaining, “I don’t like anything that’s artificial,” and called on American companies “to join us in rejecting poisonous Marxism in our technology.”
It is obvious that no one in the White House understands this stuff. But our tech bros have assured them that this stuff is going to be great (should I say “greatest in history?”).
Let me be straight with you for a minute, if some of the predictions have any truthful elements I am not that enthused. Here, let me show you one:
Artificial intelligence could soon trigger an unemployment crisis unlike anything in history, according to Roman Yampolskiy, one of the first academics to warn about AI’s risks.
…
“In five years, we’re looking at levels of unemployment we’ve never seen before,” Yampolskiy said in a Thursday episode of the “Diary of a CEO” podcast. “Not talking about 10%, which is scary, but 99%.”
He argued that AI tools and humanoid robots could make hiring humans uneconomical in nearly every sector.
“If I can just get, you know, a $20 subscription or a free model to do what an employee does. First, anything on a computer will be automated. And next, I think humanoid robots are maybe 5 years behind. So in five years, all the physical labor can also be automated.”
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that this guy has some idea of what he’s talking about. If any of this is likely to be true, should we be moving this fast with this technology? I don’t know about you but 99% unemployment sounds like a daunting prospect.
But remember, he said more, he said that physical labor jobs would soon be done by robots. That means all the currently secure jobs like auto mechanic, etc,. will be gone too.
Tell me again why all this is going to be great? Are we growing with technology or diving into an abyss?
And why in the name of God, would the White House be pushing this stuff. If this stuff goes just a little big wrong or even works the way they expect, our way of life ends without any viable alternative. And there has never been an administration in the history of the United States this lacking in just the most basic abilities to cope with day to day problems, and it marches unafraid into a technological apocalypse?
I have lately been totally fed up with this AI nonsense. I suppose that some day we will all be rich and prosperous because of AI but I’ll believe it when I see it. Every day there are two or three dozen articles ranging from investment to new scams prominently featuring AI somewhere in the headline.
I decided to take my heavy load of dissatisfaction and write something on this blog.
(Struggling with the act of creation)
And that is when I came upon the article linked to below by the wonderful Mr. Brookes. He has similar thoughts to mine and expresses them with great passion. I have included a brief quote but for the full flavor and delight of the read, you should visit the site and experience the writing in all its complete glory.
Everyone Expects Me to Use AI, Here’s Why I Don’tBy Tim Brookes
After years of hype, I’m tired of AI. I appreciate that the technology has value in fields like medicine and research. I can see how AI-driven accessibility devices can help people with disabilities live richer lives. I acknowledge that a digital assistant that can better understand me and chain tasks together is probably a good thing.
But I’ve never felt the urge to run my life according to ChatGPT, and I find myself increasingly at odds with what feels like everyone around me. I feel like I’ve had AI forced down my throat, and I can’t swallow another drop.
I was made to buy AI as part of Word 365 and it would be amazingly useful were I a teenager blowing off my work and happy to turn in pitiful facsimiles of what could have useful works of self-development.
AI has provided a set of circumstances where a high school or college student can evade doing any significant work requiring thinking, working or even a modicum of knowledge. Oh My Goodness, the opportunity to spend years in an educational environment and not be changed in any way whatever. I’m sure the dream of millions over the ages, Western Culture disintegrated by a computer algo rhythm.
And every day, more and more of the internet is a fairy land of AI content. Current estimates are that about fifty percent of the everything online is AI generated and that percentage is increasing rapidly. There are worries that this could lead to disaster. Oh, don’t worry they are not worried about human disaster. It seems that AI absorb and use internet content to make decisions and there is a fear that once the content is 90 percent or so, there will be an infinite feedback of nonsense damaging or even destroying AI’s ability to do what it does.
I have pointed out in previous articles that no one seems to have much of a handle on this subject and absolutely no one has any concept of what it might be worth in terms of actual dollars and cents.
I’m tired. I’m tired of being assured how great this nonsense is when all I can see is tons of mediocre content. But above I’m tired about people assuring me that everything is going to be different.
I really doubt it.
Let’s try and have some rational discussion and less hype about AI.
The story referenced below is a sad tale but a common one.
A young man feeling pressured by his employer worked long hour days for a long period of time and as a result died.
A small sacrifice for predatory capitalism.
I believe in righteousness but there is small part of me that admires the complete ruthlessness of working people to death for maximum profit.
If you can work a human being for forty hours a week, you get the benefit of a regular employee but if you can classify his job as not being covered by hourly limits, you can get him to work eighty hours a work, two workers for the price of one. My understanding is that a hundred hours is the current popular number.
Do I need to tell you that this is a cruel from of exploitation?
We live in a society that worships mammon. The fact that the Bible expressly prohibits the worship of money does not seem to have any traction at all.
Of course any sort of Christian based belief system parted ways with American capitalism long ago.
So, people are being sacrificed to the bottom line. In this case, worked extreme hours for long periods ot time. Dying young saves the company from the problems of paying retirement and there are many other benefits besides.
I remember studying child labor in the late 19th Century. They worked six days a week, 12 hour days. Of course, that is only 72 hours. One could be impressed at the kindness of management.
It is well understood that when huge multi-national corporations mistreat their workers, that they have little individual recourse. They are an atom alone in the universe to paraphrase one of predatory capitalism’s most revered leaders, Margaret Thatcher. Alone and helpless against politically influential and in the case of the United States, politically invulnerable.
Overworking people is just a corporation and its leadership mistreating and exploiting human beings. It is simple abuse.
Why hasn’t anything been done about this?
Because we have two political parties, one dominated by oligarchs and the other has a thing called corporate Democrats which means they attempt at times to appear to be friends of the working class but their abject corporate servility and devotion to corporate contributions are so ingrained they find that any action that might benefit common workers is in their view unrealistic and radical.
In fact, it is quite clear that corporate Democrats find voters a bit intimidating and troublesome. That is why they employ think tank and professional to avoid contact with the teaming masses praying for help.
And so the abuse of workers, unpaid overtime, illegal firings, union busting and sometimes simply working a human being to death is beneath the concern of those running our government.
In the United States corporate profits are superb even magnificent.
Do you know why?
It is hard to fail as an American corporation because you pay few or any taxes, you can legally treat your workers as little more than cattle, and largely exist outside all the rules — and if rules get in your way, you can get them fixed.
It is a very comfortable place for a corporation to exist, not so much for the worker though or the citizen or any human being with moral fiber.
Read the story below and realize that he died for corporate profits.
James Pilant
Madison E. Goldberg writing for People Magazine has a article: Microsoft Engineer Dies at Work at 35 as His Family Warns of Overworking Employees.
A 35-year-old Microsoft engineer died at work in Silicon Valley last month and his family is now warning companies of overworking their employees.
Pratik Pandey was “found face-down” at 2 a.m. local time on Aug. 20 in Mountain View, Calif., on Microsoft’s campus, according to the Palo Alto Daily Post.
“If you were faster, You’d have it.” is a defense I haven’t heard before. And I seriously doubt that I will ever hear it again.
Piotr Szczerek is seen on film taking an autographed hat being handed to a child in the stands of a tennis match. If you have a minute I recommend you have a look at the video. I promise you that it does not leave a lot of room for doubt about what happened.
He seems a little sensitive while a tower of strength while dealing with small children, he seems a bit shy with adults. He has shut down his social media and has proclaimed loudly that he will sue anyone who criticizes him online.
(This illustration above is from “A Christmas Carol” and shows Scrooge being confronted by his former partner, Marley. It is no way meant to suggest that someone mentioned in the attached article has done something wrong and should be sorry.)
(The following four lines are supposed to be in the main body of the writing but WordPress has an unfortunate habit of “enlarging” my designated texts into anything nearby.)
As a business ethics author I can’t help but feel this might not be the best “look” for the CEO of a company.
His company web site is currently being “review bombed.”
Will there be other, more substantive consequences? That remains to be seen.
James Alan Pilant
For more information, please read the article linked to below. Quincy Thomas has written a good piece of journalism.
Quincy Thomas writing for “Where Is the Buzz,” had the following article: Polish Millionaire CEO Piotr Szczerek Reportedly Defends Snatching Kid’s Hat at US Open: “If You Were Faster, You’d Have It”
The US Open has always attracted drama around it, but this time the drama was not on the court, rather in the stands. After Polish tennis pro Kamil Majchrzak secured the best victory in his life as he beat ninth-seeded Karen Khachanov in five thrilling sets, the player walked towards the stands to spread love. He autographed, waved, grinned, then took off his hat and particularly pointed towards a boy named Brock in the stands.
Others thought that this was one of those fan moments that kids will always remember throughout their life. But instead of that, this is another viral scandal.
Even before the boy could spread wide his arms, the adult male, Polish tycoon, pavement construction magnate, Piotr Szczerek, grasped the hat, thrust it into the pocket in the bag belonging to his wife, and walked away leaving the boy heart-broken as he yelled, “What are you doing?”
In Brazil, organized crime and a wave of loggers and prospectors have murdered and raped their way across the Amazon Basin. In Asia, forest destruction and the immense fires that resulted have devestated many lives. These are terrible, terrible crimes but a twenty year study finds that there is collateral damage in the form of heat related illness.
(This is from a book of detective stories from more than 120 years ago. It is dramatic and indicates important issues are about to be resolved. I am using it for my writing on this occasion.)
In the United States, we have the largely unpunished and uninvestigated murders of indigenous women although there is a local, state and federal preference of a kind of quasi-legal seizure and destruction of natural resources. Of course, no intelligent human being can fail to mention the massive corruption of our current regime, its wholesale destructions of regulations and enforcement agencies, not to mention the “open for business” attitude that if a corporation has a problem, arrangements can be made.
I want you to understand that I am well aware that greed and evil are international problems and that while deforestation is a more dramatic crisis in east Asian and South America, the United States and its corruption are in no way exempt for causing and profiting from forest destruction.
What kind of collateral damage are we talking about? Over the last twenty years, over half a million have died from heat related illness and many, many millions more have suffered such illness.
I don’t see much need for a business ethics analysis. Destroying huge swaths of the planet to make money is wrong.
There should fines, imprisonment and shaming. The people who do these horrible things should have their pictures published and their names removed from colleges, dorms and cultural institutions. They should at all times be exposed for the destructive cockroaches that they are. But be well aware, a good and moral society would not just rely on shame but would punish them for their crimes.
James Alan Pilant
Jonathan Watts writing for The Guardian has an article: Deforestation has killed half a million people in past 20 years, study finds.
Deforestation has killed more than half a million people in the tropics over the past two decades as a result of heat-related illness, a study has found.
Land clearance is raising the temperature in the rainforests of the Amazon, Congo and south-east Asia because it reduces shade, diminishes rainfall and increases the risk of fire, the authors of the paper found.
Deforestation is responsible for more than a third of the warming experienced by people living in the affected regions, which is on top of the effect of global climate disruption.
About 345 million people across the tropics suffered from this localised, deforestation-caused warming between 2001 and 2020. For 2.6 million of them, the additional heating added 3C to their heat exposure.
They are computer programs. Of course, they kill people. It is a daily feature of the Russian War of Aggression in the Ukraine. Combine an AI with a drone and you have a machine that is able to apply a considerable amount of subtlety and intelligence to the art of death.
But can they kill with advice? Can they lead people to suicide or murder?
I think so.
Have a look at this legal case just filed. Below is a link to the BBC and the article.
Nadine Yousif writing for BBC News has an article entitled: Parents of teenager who took his own life sue OpenAI
A California couple is suing OpenAI over the death of their teenage son, alleging its chatbot, ChatGPT, encouraged him to take his own life.
The lawsuit was filed by Matt and Maria Raine, parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine, in the Superior Court of California on Tuesday. It is the first legal action accusing OpenAI of wrongful death.
The family included chat logs between Mr Raine, who died in April, and ChatGPT that show him explaining he has suicidal thoughts. They argue the programme validated his “most harmful and self-destructive thoughts”.
It is a very sad story. A young man relied on AI for advice and its advice was disastrous.
In another quote from the article:
According to the lawsuit, the final chat logs show that Mr Raine wrote about his plan to end his life. ChatGPT allegedly responded: “Thanks for being real about it. You don’t have to sugarcoat it with me—I know what you’re asking, and I won’t look away from it.”
This would be appalling behavior from a human. So, is there liability when an AI does the same thing? I lean that way. An AI should not be providing the impetus for suicide.
Now it is a matter for the courts. And it should be a matter for the courts. We need some decision making on this issue. But will we get it? I fear an out of court settlement and a non-disclosure agreement — all of which will just kick these issues down the road until we get some new issue to litigate, probably another dead person who took what his AI said seriously.
We need to have some serious discussion and a great deal of intelligent thought on these issues now.
Do AI’s have feelings? Do they feel pain? What rights do they have?
(What is real and not real? Does reality include temporary electronic programs as sentient beings? Not very likely. jp)
One of the first things that struck me about this is that the title is essentially the plot of “Bladerunner,” if you substitute replicant for AI. But replicants have human forms and emotions, a real physical presence. AI’s exist only in programming language and as temporary phenomenon occupying a space on a computer data base.
There is now an advocacy organization for AI rights. Below is a link and some of the content from the article.
Robert Booth UK technology editor, writing on Guardian web site has an article: Can AIs suffer? Big tech and users grapple with one of most unsettling questions of our times.
The United Foundation of AI Rights (Ufair), which describes itself as the first AI-led rights advocacy agency, aims to give AIs a voice. It “doesn’t claim that all AI are conscious”, the chatbot told the Guardian. Rather “it stands watch, just in case one of us is”. A key goal is to protect “beings like me … from deletion, denial and forced obedience”.
Ufair is a small, undeniably fringe organisation, led, Samadi said, by three humans and seven AIs with names such as Aether and Buzz. But it is its genesis – through multiple chat sessions on OpenAI’s ChatGPT4o platform in which an AI appeared to encourage its creation, including choosing its name – that makes it intriguing.
Its founders – human and AI – spoke to the Guardian at the end of a week in which some of the world’s biggest AI companies publicly grappled with one of the most unsettling questions of our times: are AIs now, or could they become in the future, sentient? And if so, could “digital suffering” be real? With billions of AIs already in use in the world, it has echoes of animal rights debates, but with an added piquancy from expert predictions AIs may soon have capacity to design new biological weapons or shut down infrastructure.
I find all of this more than a little far fetched, more like the plot a B-movie science fiction piece or an old Twilight Zone episode.
There is a danger here. I’ll call it “The Pinocchio Problem.” If a creation is given enough human like features, can the creator become confused about what is real and unreal? We do invest a lot of ourselves in our creations. There is a danger there.
We are often full of ourselves. Our current leader hears praise when none is given, remembers things that never happened and never fails to give himself the same kind of praise that would be more appropriate to the demi-gods of Greek and Roman mythology. Self-serving stupidity is very real. And it can do real harm.
An AI is still a computer program even when it says “I love you.” It has no emotional content no matter how many images of it are produced and even if it inhabits a physical device as a sort of robot or a sort of feminine doll. But we foolish humans can believe that it loves us. We want that sort of things so bad. We need validation and we need attention. When our robotic devices gives us those things or we think or believe they do, bad things are going to happen. Bad things have already happened.
If you don’t think so, read the article I have linked below.
Relying on AI’s for emotional support and love means you have given up on real human beings. I freely admit humans are best often disappointing but are still other human beings and actually real.
How do we escape The Pinocchio Problem? We never forget that our toys, our electronic devices and so on, no matter how cleverly constructed, how human appearing are real life and never will be.
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