Several seemingly unrelated news stories during this holiday week have pointed to the rise of capitalism run amok in our society. The influence of big money and the desire for making money without legal, ethical, or moral restraint are having consequences on our society that will reverberate for generations.
First, there are stories about the state of college athletics, especially about college football during bowl season and the opening of the transfer portal. Many players are abandoning their teammates and sitting out their bowl games, either to drop out of school and enter the transfer portal, or to drop out of school to prepare for entering the NFL draft. Tampering and big payoffs through the name, image, and likeness money (NIL) are the worst-kept secrets in big time college football. Players are working toward their third, and sometimes even fourth, college football team in search of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And all that funded by big money corporate donors, trying to attach their brands to popular college football players.
Second, there is the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) by students to write papers for them. One particular app in the news is called ChatGPS, which can take a writing assignment and use AI to generate a paper, complete with references. ChatGPS is making money by selling students the tools they need to cheat. And that leads to other software tools sold to schools and individual teachers to detect the cheating, sometimes by the same companies that develop the cheating tools. And the arms race escalates, with these software development companies laughing all the way to the bank.
All this is capitalism run amok.
