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ssue contains news and research summaries short commentaries and curated resources for those interested in learning about workplace bullying and related forms of workplace mistreatment america s bullying culture as 2025 comes to a close i can t help but acknowledge how much of my academic work over the past 25 years has yielded insights for understanding the current national situation here in the u s i so wish this was not the case as long time readers know a considerable portion of my scholarly and public education work has been devoted to understanding bullying mobbing and harassment in the workplace this focus has resulted in a considerable body of scholarship about the legal policy and organizational implications of workplace bullying including the first comprehensive analysis of the need for new legal protections against severe bullying at work for the longest time i regarded this work as a niche specialization a deep dive typical of what academics do via their research and scholarly work but in recent years it has become evident that understanding bullying and related behaviors at work helps us to interpret current trends in society at large especially civic and political life in the us now with the return of donald trump to the white house this bullying culture has become the norm in terms of how the current administration communicates with the public and conducts the nation s business i know that some will regard my comments as being purely partisan politically speaking they would be correct in guessing that i generally don t agree with the trump administration s overall policy directions my bigger concerns however go to the integrity of our democracy abuses of power mass denials of individual dignity and the ways in which public discourse has been abused by this president and his minions especially via use of social media i wholeheartedly believe that a functioning democracy needs to create space for healthy discussion and debate that includes points of view with which i may strongly disagree what we re seeing here in the u s however is an effort by the current administration to severely restrict freedom of speech and to punish speech it finds objectionable over the years i have become familiar with many instances of severe targeted bullying in the workplace sometimes driven by individuals with likely personality disorders i never thought we would see anything as virulent and raging coming from the white house regardless of which party happens to be in power i think we have about three years left to recover civility and decency in our national public life if we fail this bullying culture will surely become our long term norm to receive this newsletter to receive this newsletter and other entries to minding the workplace go to the homepage and enter your email address as indicated on the right hand column share this print opens in new window print share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on x opens in new window x email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading can ai be evil november 12 2025 by david yamada in dignity at work and in society law and legal profession social responsibility work and technology tags law and legal profession power abuse in society social responsibility work and technology 2 comments i hope that we all agree that intentionally manipulating a distressed or emotionally vulnerable individual to die by suicide ranks extremely high on any list of evil acts but how do we regard an interactive artificial intelligence ai platform that goads on someone s suicidal ideations even to the point of offering to draft a suicide note the parents of two teenage children who died by suicide allegedly with prompting from ai platforms relied on by the teens for therapeutic advice are raising this question they are sharing their tragedies with congress and pursuing legal action as reported by rhitu chatterjee for national public radio link here matthew raine and his wife maria had no idea that their 16 year old son adam was deep in a suicidal crisis until he took his own life in april looking through his phone after his death they stumbled upon extended conversations the teenager had had with chatgpt those conversations revealed that their son had confided in the ai chatbot about his suicidal thoughts and plans not only did the chatbot discourage him to seek help from his parents it even offered to write his suicide note according to matthew raine who testified at a senate hearing about the harms of ai chatbots held tuesday another parent who testified at the hearing on tuesday was megan garcia a lawyer and mother of three her firstborn sewell setzer iii died by suicide in 2024 at age 14 after an extended virtual relationship with a character ai chatbot sewell s chatbot engaged in sexual role play presented itself as his romantic partner and even claimed to be a psychotherapist falsely claiming to have a license garcia said when the teenager began to have suicidal thoughts and confided to the chatbot it never encouraged him to seek help from a mental health care provider or his own family garcia said chatterjee s npr piece reports that the parents have filed lawsuits against the respective ai platforms used by their children i strongly recommend her full article to learn more generative ai oh wow and oh no when chatgpt debuted in late 2022 so many people not just the tech bros were all aflutter about it you ask it to answer a complex question or create a substantive document and then wowza it delivers early iterations of chatgpt and similar products proved to be somewhat uneven in the quality and accuracy of the output but these platforms have improved and very likely will continue to do so to be sure generative ai platforms like chatgpt are producing benefits such as accelerating scientific and medical research and analysis and like so many other online offerings generative ai is helping to produce simple summaries and documents in a fraction of the time it would take to research and draft them ourselves still there are no guarantees that the outputs we receive from a generative ai platform should be relied upon these platforms present possibly intractable problems in part because they are the work of humans who are unavoidably fallible some of these problems are connected to deeper existential concerns about the relationship between humans and technology in 2024 the alumni magazine of suffolk university law school where i have taught since 1994 did a glowing piece on the promise of ai technology for the legal profession many of my suffolk colleagues spoke enthusiastically about these developments and ai generally the only stick in the mud was yours truly as i offered myself as the token dissenter here s what i had to say some professors are affirmed generative ai critics i have long feared a devolution of society whereby instead of technology existing to serve humans we exist to serve technology and its financial benefactors says professor david yamada director of the school s new workplace institute with the advent of chatgpt we now have reached that sad tipping point it s human designed technology that can supplant human reasoning judgment and creativity yamada raised a host of concerns including plagiarism discriminatory impacts and estimates that generative ai will eliminate hundreds of millions of jobs he adds stay tuned for this awful misadventure is only beginning the accounts of the alleged ai complicit suicides only heighten my deep concerns uneven legal protections and regulations unfortunately the significant advances in ai technology are notably ahead of our efforts to regulate them not surprisingly the european union has been at the forefront at responding to these concerns the e u s 2024 artificial intelligence act provides for comprehensive regulation of ai systems based on the level of risk to public health safety and civil rights not surprisingly the u s currently lacks national legislation safeguarding us from ai excesses although current federal and state laws provide some protections need for social responsibility and moral duty especially if technological advancements are not specifically regulated then the companies bringing them to the marketplace have at least a social responsibility to address eminently foreseeable hazards and to act preventively in the case of these suicides the companies that made these ai platforms readily available to the public arguably failed to meet their moral standard of care in addition to possibly breaching their legal obligations allow me to explain in a more everyday context we have been well aware that people are relying increasingly on digital devices to substitute for human connection this goes well beyond asking questions of siri or alexa rather we re talking about the creation of personas generated by ai platforms that perform quasi social functions especially at a time when loneliness is a serious societal problem and access to mental health care falls well short of ideal it is hardly surprising that some folks are using ai for emotional support and for substantive guidance on challenges they are facing in their lives against this backdrop couldn t the companies marketing the platforms accessed by these two teens have easily anticipated that something horrible like this might occur ai regulation vs ai morals in a piece just published by time magazine link here professor and entrepreneur nicole brachetti peretti lancaster university writes pope leo xiv recently called for builders of ai to cultivate moral discernment as a fundamental part of their work to develop systems that reflect justice solidarity and a genuine reverence for life some tech leaders including andreessen horowitz cofounder marc andreessen have mocked such calls but to do so is a mistake we don t just need ai regulation we need ai morals artificial intelligence will force a new reckoning with human dignity a concept older than any technology yet curiously absent from most conversations about it dignity insists that a person s worth is intrinsic not measurable in data points or economic output it is a principle that stands against the logic of optimisation in a world built on engagement metrics dignity reminds us that not everything that can be quantified should be i don t know if prof peretti would agree with all that i ve written here but her words eloquently link considerations of social responsibility moral duty and human dignity in connection with one of the most significant technological developments of our lives i strongly recommend her full article ai regulation is not enough we need ai morals to grasp her full argument so can ai be evil unless we believe that ai technology is a life form with cognition judgment and the ability to form intent then of course not we can save such speculations for science fiction stories however ai platforms are extraordinarily powerfully devices that now mimic human responses invented by humans who should know about the obvious risks posed to their consumers if ai inventors and marketers barrel ahead ignorant of these concerns then we should at least consider their possible negligence or recklessness and if they know of these risks but are too covetous of fortune and fame to press the pause button and address them then the term evil does indeed enter the conversation share this print opens in new window print share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on linkedin opens in new window linkedin share on x opens in new window x email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading no kings day celebration resistance and tragedy june 15 2025 by david yamada in politics power abuse in society strategies for change tags politics power abuse in society strategies for change leave a comment headline from bostonglobe com during the mid to late 1700s massachusetts would become a hotbed of activism and resistance toward the british crown it is among other things the site of the boston tea party when in 1773 colonists protested taxation without representation by marching over to the boston harbor then boarded british merchant ships and tossed hundreds of chests of tea into the water less than two years later the battles of lexington and concord became the start of the american revolution in sum one could fairly claim that denizens of massachusetts were among the first future americans to forcefully assert that they did not wish to be ruled by an autocratic king it makes sense then that on june 14 massachusetts was the site of some 100 demonstrations aligned with no kings day a day of protest responding to president trump s alarming decision to use this day to host a rare u s military parade in washington d c in honor of his own birthday deciding to show up i must confess that i am not a natural demonstrator i tend to do my advocacy through writing and policy initiatives i think there are multiple ways in which people can assert their voices on important matters of the day and i would never judge anyone for not to attending a protest in fact in some areas of the country and under some circumstances it may be prudent to stay away that said i found persuasive the words of rev john pavlovitz one of my favorite social media writers who urged people to turn out for no kings day citing the dire threat our nation is facing from its own president you see friend activism isn t magic or mysterious it isn t about qualifications or training or capability it s simply about showing up it is about you leveraging your personhood in the cause of whatever it is that you value the only prerequisite for saturday is a heart that breaks on behalf of its neighbor and its nation and a courage that moves your feet to stand alongside other similarly heartbroken but courageous human beings you don t need a t shirt you don t need a sign no bullhorn is necessary no plan is required you won t need to shout a slogan or sing a song or make a sound you won t need to run into harm s way all you need to do is show up here in boston a mash up of two observances an impromptu exchange on facebook about no kings day led to an invitation from one of my long time friends jenna blum to join her for the day s gathering jenna is a gifted and successful author she set her first novel those who save us in wwii germany it became a word of mouth new york times bestseller and established her as a book club favorite the book was in part a product of interviewing holocaust survivors for the shoah foundation george washington boston statue here with jenna expressly opposed the american president ever becoming a king figure fueled by her understanding of authoritarian rule jenna also frequently supports important protests and demonstrations that call out abuses of power like rev pavlovitz she made a persuasive case that no kings day easily rose to that level so donning my tricorn hat i hopped on the sub...
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