Comment of the Day: “If A.I. Wrote a WAPO Op-Ed Piece to Set Us Up For a Take-Over By the Bots, This Is What It Would Be Like…”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Jon’s excellent comment began by marveling that the commentariate here at Ethics Alarms doesn’t seem to be vary interested in the artificial intelligence issue, which is the focus of TIME’s annual “Person of the Year” issue. See?

I immediately felt it was a Comment of the Day; now we’ll find out if this essay also inspires apathy and shrugs.

Here is Jon’s Comment of the Day on the post, “If A.I. Wrote a WAPO Op-Ed Piece to Set Us Up For a Take-Over By the Bots, This Is What It Would Be Like…”

***

It’s interesting that this post has only garnered a couple of comments, and your previous AI post on the 7th didn’t get any. Not to oversell it, but AI may be the most important issue ever.  Already entry-level white collar jobs are disappearing.  I heard of a recent study that 13% of such jobs were gone, and that was published back in August. AI is being compared to the industrial revolution in terms of workforce displacement, but exponentially more disruptive since it’s taking place in the span of a few years rather than several decades. As if that’s not enough, there’s serious talk that we may be ushering in an extinction event for homo-sapiens.  On the plus side, though, my AI heavy stock portfolio is doing quite well, thank you.

My own experience with AI has been less than encouraging.  I really hadn’t made much use of it, but last week I was putting together a spreadsheet to project annual returns on some weekly stock market moves I was considering.  Creating the spreadsheet and then populating the data for about 20 stocks was going to take me the better part of an hour, and then updating the data in real time would be difficult.  It struck me that AI might do it better and more quickly than I could.

My first task was to determining which AI to use.  I figured I’d have to subscribe to one of them to get the job done decently and in a timely fashion, so I asked Google which AI was best for real-time data.  The answer both from the Google AI and various Reddit forums was that an AI model I hadn’t heard of, Perplexity, was superior when dealing with pulling information from the web in real time.  I found I could get a year-long free trial, so that’s what I went with.

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From the Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: A Democratic House Member Says White Children Should Be Taught To Feel Guilty About Their Skin Color

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

What this says about her party and its ideological moorings is obvious. So is what it tells us about anyone who would vote for someone like this to have any power or influence over our society. We have had the “gotcha!” privilege debate here extensively in the 20-teens, and it was insufficiently slapped down to prevent the DEI and “presumed racism” pathogens.

The ethics mystery is why anyone white swallows this crap? I can see the advantages to minorities, since they can, by accepting it, absolve themselves of all failures, misdeeds and shortcomings. However, whites (and men) who fall for this argument are agreeing to be metaphorically hobbled, like Kunta Kinte in “Roots.” Worse, they are endorsing the hobbling of their children too.

I get why extreme, ruthless, unethical progressives push such garbage: it’s a means to an end, and the end is power. I do not understand why anyone privileged with a functioning brain and critical thinking skills tolerates officials like Stalker, never mind actually voting for her.

More on Trump Derangement and I.C.E.

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I still am noodling about how exactly to define Trump Derangement beyond listing the symptoms. I’d say, for example, that a retired and distinguished lawyer re-posting with favor a typical Occupy Democrats Facebook rant qualifies as one. This particular Occupy Democrat post—is that group worse than Move-On, better, or the same?—expressed outrage over “US citizen and Army veteran George Retes'” testimony to Congress over (if he is to be believed) a mistaken arrest and abusive treatment by I.C.E., as it mistook him as an illegal immigrant. Naturally, since he was recruited by Democrats to impugn the agency, my friend (and a somewhat famous classmate who has been engaging in what I would call borderline unethical conduct by regularly attacking his former client, President Trump) automatically accepted his account over that of Homeland Security, which in a release rebutted Retes’ claim as well as that of others who have been cited by critics as being falsely detained or arrested.

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Unethical Quote of the Week: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

“My understanding was that independent agencies exist because Congress has decided that some issues, some matters, some areas should be handled in this way by non-partisan experts, that Congress is saying that expertise matters — with respect to aspects of the economy, and transportation, and the various independent agencies that we have. So, having a president come in and fire all the scientists, and the doctors, and the economists, and the PhDs, and replacing them with loyalists and people who don’t know anything, is actually not in the best interest of the citizens of the United States.”

—-Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, making the case for a technocracy that directly contradicts the structure of government dictated by that U.S. Constitution thingy, in her questioning of  U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer during this week’s oral argument in “United States v. Slaughter”.

As Professor Turley archly comments in his post on Jackson’s classically totalitarian belief that the proletariat can’t be trusted and must be guided by supposedly wise and beneficent “experts” (like her), “Jackson simply brushed aside the fact that the president is given authority to execute the laws and that the executive branch is established under the Constitution…The use of “real-world consequences” seems to overwhelm any true separation-of-powers protections for presidents against the administrative state. It also allows the Court to delve into effective policy or legislative impacts in support of the expert class over what are framed as ignorant or vengeful presidents.”

To state what should be obvious about the so-called “expert class,” they have proven themselves to be very partisan and therefore not sufficiently trustworthy for Congress to bestow on them “independence” from Presidential oversight within the Executive Branch. We have seen that experts like university professors and scholars are overwhelmingly biased and partisan, that scientists are biased and partisan, that doctors, lawyers, economists, psychologists, judges and, yes, ethicists are biased partisan. The concept of the non-partisan, independent expert is a convenient ideology-driven mythology, and anyone paying attention to what we have witnessed in our country, society, and culture over the past couple of decades has to admit that it is as believable as Santa Claus.

Let me add in closing that the arrogance and smug entitlement that radiates from Jackson’s “people who don’t know anything” is staggering, obnoxious, and ironic. She’s a Supreme Court Justice and apparently doesn’t know what the Constitution means…

In Which I Call Ann Althouse’s Expressed Hatred Of “The Little Drummer Boy” & Raise My Hatred of the Bing Crosby-David Bowie Duet

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

I was pleased to see today that bloggress Ann Althouse devoted a post to how awful “The Little Drummer Boy” is. She wrote, quoting from a post from an earlier Christmas season,

“[I]f you ever feel like giving me a gift, and you think all you’ve got to give is that drum number you’re threatening to perform, realize you are making a mistake. There’s also the gift of silence. I’d prefer that. I know baby Jesus reputedly appreciated the gift of drumming — according to that nasty song — but consider the possibility that Jesus was just being nice. I know, politeness is a quality alien to infants, but — come on! — it was Jesus! Put the damned drum away.”

I know I have written on EA in the past about how I rank Christmases by how many times I have to listen to the Harry Simeone Choir recording of that song. Ann also quotes Washington Post satirist Alexandra Petri’s column condemning “The Little Drummer Boy, in which Petri wrote in part,

“I cannot stand it. Nothing will fix it, even the application of David Bowie to it. Every year I say, ‘I hate this song,’ and every year people say, ‘Have you heard David Bowie’s version?’ Yes. Yes, I have. It is still an abomination.”

EVEN the application of David Bowie to it? That is, beyond question, the worst rendition of the song in existence, and I would rather pluck out my eyes and puncture my ear drums rather than experience that monstrosity by Bowie with Bing Crosby’s complicity ever again. Here’s what I wrote about the “creepiest totalitarian lyrics to a Christmas song that was already bad” in 2022:

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Ethics Quiz: The Kamala Harris Bust

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

I did a Danny Thomas spit-take when I read that Kamala Harris, in an interview with the New York Times, proudly proclaimed herself “a historic figure.” Harris noted the tradition of creating a marble bust for every U.S. Vice President after they leave office, saying: “There will be a marble bust of me in Congress. I am a historic figure like any vice president of the United States ever was.”

This has sparked mass mockery in the conservative news media and social media.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:

Is this mockery fair?

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Now THIS Is A Frivolous Lawsuit…

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Ethics Alarms has mentioned before the fact that it is very difficult for a lawyer to violate Rule 3.1 in the Rules of Professional Conduct, which prohibits frivolous law suits and appeals. The ABA version of the rule, “Meritorious Claims & Contentions,” states,

“A lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous, which includes a good faith argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law. A lawyer for the defendant in a criminal proceeding, or the respondent in a proceeding that could result in incarceration, may nevertheless so defend the proceeding as to require that every element of the case be established.”

Why is it hard to violate the rule? It is because even the most desperate “Hail Mary” law suits sometimes win. “Good faith” simply requires that the attorney bringing the suit honestly believes it might succeed, which means that it helps if he’s an idiot.

The last time Ethics Alarms suggested a law suit was sanctionably frivolous was in 2020, when Alan Dershowitz sued CNN for what was just typical sloppy, biased CNN reporting. The First Amendment protects news outlets from defamation suits by public figures unless the defamatory news is deliberate and malicious. I flagged another 3.1 violation in 2019, when a lawyer filed 49 appeals for the same client in a condo dispute despite the fact that multiple judges had rejected his arguments and said, in effect, “Don’t come back here again with this crap!”

Today I learned about a frivolous sexual harassment lawsuit by a female lawyer against another lawyer at her former firm. As an epitome of frivolity, it takes the metaphorical cake.

Her complaint alleged that the man ogled and stared at her, took photographs, and generally created a hostile work environment by his unwanted attentions.

The defendant is blind.

SCOTUS Finally Figures Out That It’s Unethical To Ignore the Constitution

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Well, the majority of the Supreme Court, anyway.

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court hosted arguments in Trump v. Slaughter, which challenges the constitutionality of the “independent agencies” Congress has voted into existence over many decades. Their leaderss are not under the control of the President of the United States, though they are considered part of the Executive Branch. Go figure.

President Trump fired FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, not for cause, as authorized by the FTC statute, but because her service was “inconsistent with this Administration’s priorities.” Slaughter refused to leave office, setting up a constitutional showdown.

The New York Times concluded from the argument, “Justices Seem Ready to Give Trump More Power to Fire Independent Government Officials.” The momentum shifted when Justice Gorsuch (above, left) said, “I’ll put my cards on the table. Maybe… there is no such thing in our constitutional order as a fourth branch of government.”

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Observations Upon Getting Fired By My First Bar Association CLE Client…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I got fired again yesterday. Sometime I need to go back through my memory banks and figure out how many times this has happened, but it’s a lot. My proclivity for getting canned was a main motivation for me starting my own business thirty years ago, because I was reasonable certain that I wouldn’t fire myself, and that I could probably talk my late wife, the company’s COO, from doing it.

Technically one could say that my company, ProEthics, was fired, but since I’m the only employee now, that would be nit-picking. This bar association had contracted with me as its primary legal ethics teacher for the entire 30 years, with my handling between three and five three-hour seminars every year, plus the ethics segment in the monthly bar’s orientation session for new bar admittees. Its support was a substantial reason Grace and I were willing to take the plunge as a small business in the first place.

By the time the axe fell, on a Zoom call, naturally, I pretty much knew what was coming. The CLE director, whom I had worked with amicably for ten years, had suddenly stopped responding to my emails until he sent me the dreaded “we need to talk” message last week. There had been no incident, screw-up, failure or apparent precipitating catalyst for the end that I could detect: my participant evaluations have remained in the 4-5 range in all categories on a 1-5 scale for all three decades years. My last seminar, an adaptation of my one-man show about Clarence Darrow with ethics commentary on the issues raised by his career, was especially popular, in great part because of the talented D.C. actor who played Clarence, Steve Lebens. One lawyer rushed up and after the program, grabbed my hand, and said the seminar had changed his whole perspective on practicing law as he choked back tears.

To be honest, the blow yesterday was more sentimental than anything. Dr, Fauci’s stupid Wuhan virus lockdown killed the live seminar part of my business, and it never recovered. I was paid by the head by this bar association as a matter of loyalty and courtesy, and the heads had almost completely disappeared. I used to have 100-150 lawyers in a classroom; for the last few years it’s been less than ten, with maybe 20 more online or zooming, sometimes a few more. Lawyers don’t like mandatory CLE, and the lockdown gave them an excuse to use remote technology and videos, meaning that they could be doing billable work or playing with their dogs, with no one the wiser.

Those methods don’t work pedagogically nearly as well as face-to-face training, and everybody knows it; they also do not let me do what I do better than most legal ethics teachers, which is engage and entertain while teaching. Most of my income is from expert consulting now, which I am good at but nowhere near as much fun. This association’s seminars were a loss leader for me by the end.

Still, the “we’ve decided to go in another direction” message was a bit mysterious. I was told by the CLE director that the orders came from “upstairs.” The numbers still said I was their best and most popular ethics teacher: why the new “direction”? I’ve won the bar two national awards for innovative CLE, and do the only musical ethics programs in the field with my long-time collaborator Mike Messer. What’s not to like?

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If A.I. Wrote a WAPO Op-Ed Piece to Set Us Up For a Take-Over By the Bots, This Is What It Would Be Like…

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Oh , yeah, this is good advice.

The Washington Post (gift link, but don’t get excited, it’s a crummy gift) permitted a father-son team of faithful dupes to reassure us all that artificial intelligence is no different from any other machine, and can never compete with the human mind. Authors Andrew Klavan (a novelist) and Spencer Klavan, a classicist, are here to explain to us that artificial intelligence is like a wax writing tablet was to Plato (Spencer’s idea, I bet) or computers were to past generations, technological advances humans foolishly thought could match the human mind. “But by using machines as metaphors for our minds, we fall prey to the illusion that our minds are nothing more than machines. So it’s not surprising that now, when the possibilities of AI are enthralling Silicon Valley, those who think programs can become conscious are trying to tell us that consciousness is just a program,” they write.

Point? We have nothing to worry about! These things can’t really think or feel like we do! A.I. lacks “what ancient philosophers called “the inner logos” — the unique interior apparatus we have for structuring and understanding our experience of the world.”

Neither Klavan has anything in his biography to indicate they have more than the average landscaper’s understanding of technology, so what’s their authority for this verdict? Jesus, and Louis Armstrong. I kid you not. “The great Louis Armstrong, performing the George David Weiss and Bob Thiele song, “What a Wonderful World,” put it this way,” they write. “I see friends shaking hands, saying ‘How do you do?’ / They’re really saying: ‘I love you.’” Jesus put it similarly in Matthew 15: “The things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart.”

The two non-scientists have come to the dangerous and ignorant conclusion that A.I. bots are just “large language models” (LLMs) that are not capable of thought because, well, that’s what Louis sings. They tell us at the end,

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