When The Authorities Are Wrong: An Ethics Examination
Companies spanning a broad range of industries, and most specifically multinational corporations, seek project managers possessing Project Management Professional (PMP) certification, identifying it as a “must have” on job descriptions. The certificate, primarily earned through the passing of a rigorous exam testing for textbook knowledge on project management’s best practices, certainly holds value. It demonstrates industry knowledge and theory expertise [akin to a PhD].
I once aspired to earn PMP certification, knowing it would position me in high demand within the market and open ample opportunities for marketing. I am no longer interested in the certification. My rationale is multifold, but is increasingly bolstered by the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) glorification of Artificial Intelligence (AI), as communicated in the Generative AI course offerings in the PMI eLearning center, and in many of their social media posts. This idealization of AI depicts the neoliberal capitalism at their base.
There’s a great display of cognitive dissonance within this institution’s push for AI utilization and specialization. In their recent claim on Instagram that the most “future ready” professionals are skilled in AI is both erroneous and diabolical, when AI is depriving a future from all living things. According to reports released in January of 2026 by the United Nations and other international experts (here and here), planet earth is currently in a water bankruptcy caused by AI.
The aforementioned posit doesn’t even account for the negative health impacts produced by AI’s data centeres, their displacement of entire communities, them being tools of state surveillance, the racialized algorithmic bias, or other harmful extractions of non-renewable natural resources.
Esteemed as the world’s leading association for project management, and bearing the responsibility for standardizing and the determination of best practices as the guiding force, they have a duty to do better, to be better. In Anishinaabe tradition is the teaching to give rightly proportioned consideration to the generations that came before us, the present, and the seven generations yet to come; the past, present, and future being represented in the braid. Despite talk of corporate social responsibility (CSR), organizations rooted in neoliberal capitalist aims [of which the highest forms are imperialism and genocide] are deliberatedly evading their duties to mankind and the earth they occupy.
It’s commonly asserted use of AI should be limited to “bean counting “ (administrative tasks usually pertaining to financial management and accounting), where it can “enhance efficiency.” For decades, prior to the development of AI, businesses successfully used Excel, Sheets, Atlassian products, and other software, to perform bean counting tasks. Minimizing harmful practices, rather than ceasing to participate in them, doesn’t absolve companies of committing societal and ecological harms.
An ethical solution-focused response is to return to practices utilized before the development and widespread utilization of AI. What this looks like in practice is employing team members to type functions into spreadsheets, otherwise manually input data into a tracker, or run numbers. This isn’t regressive, it’s the recentering of human [a progressive stance in a world that erases so many]. While the increase of human resources might present upfront costs, it absolves companies of complicity in ecocide, genocide, and other harmful implications of neoliberal capitalism. Again,
This isn’t regressive, it’s the recentering of human [a progressive stance in a world that erases so many].
We all have an obligation to the generations yet to come, to not deprive them of a future simply to serve neoliberal capitalist interests in the name of efficiency. It’s shameful that esteemed institutions abandon their social responsibility to advance corporate greed [a summation of what’s occurring]. May this serve as a reminder that the authorities can be, and often are, wrong. We, as project managers and experienced or emerging business leaders, have a choice to keep these expert institutions on the pedestal, or to disengage. Again,
We have a choice to keep these expert institutions on the pedestal, or to disengage.
I implore you to lean into the Anishinaabek tradition of giving consideration to the generations before us, here now, and yet to come.
Discussion Questions
What are your overall thoughts about the utilization of AI in the workplace?
Do you agree that the most “future-ready” professionals are well-versed in AI? what, other than AI, prepares professionals for a future of advancing strategic initiatives?
How are you and/or your organization engaging in neoliberal capitalism?
Where within your company is AI being used? and what excuses or justification have you used to support this practice?
Does knowledge of its harms compell you to boycott AI?
Small business owners, can I interest you in a simple and customizable tool to manage your finances without use of AI?
