Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

cryo32

Good. Why wouldn't you boo at a net loss for your own personal security?

arn3n

I would be disappointed if someone took the completion of my degree and the ceremony behind it as an opportunity to push their business. There’s enough advertisements on the internet; We don't need ads in our universities, too.

NDlurker

I saw Dr. Fauci give a commencement speech over the weekend and was cheered for warning people about the massive increase in misinformation/disinformation, how AI is enabling it, and that they need to use their critical thinking skills when confronted with it.

Havoc

Noticing it more on YouTube too - scripts that are definitely AI. Tons of it’s not z it’s y

muglug

I’m reasonably certain that Schmidt anticipated that reaction after the first speaker was booed. It had the vibe of “These people need to hear the Truth”.

seltzerboys

my best friend is a high school english teacher. he said the worst part is kids keep hearing 'it's inevitable,' the complete integration of AI into every facet of life and thinking is gonna happen no matter what anyone says or does. this is the most manipulative and untrue thing anyone could say to a kid scared of a certain kind of future. its it's own kind of misinformation to tell people that something that will take an exorbitant amount of man power, coordination, resourcing, and experimentation to execute on is 'inevitable.' he also said the people who argue it's inevitable are always the ones with a profit motive lol, which i disagree with only because in tech many people who have an anti-profit motive also say it's inevitable.

keybored

Reporter: “Seems to have struck a nerve” The Tech Powers That Be has told these young adults that AI will disrupt the job market that they are entering. Maybe decimate white collar work. Granted, maybe this was mostly a few years ago because the ecstatic celebration among the cream of the crop of the parasites seems to have cooled down, maybe because they figured out that telling everyone in office jobs that their tech was supposed to make their lives worse was a bad strategy. But still, that was a narrative that has stuck. So these kinds of people drill that non-consentual thought into young adults’ brain. Then the same kind come to their office job graduation ceremony and take the opportunity to hype AI? Yeah, they struck a nerve that they manufactured themselves. Two possible conclusions to draw from that. 1. Their social brains are so atrophried and withered from the daily sycophancy (occupational hazard of being very high up on the corporate ladder) that they honestly thought that grads would be happy about AI disrupting the job market (the commoners love when stocks go up?) 2. Signalling to investors that AI Is Still Happening at every damn opportunity is more important than pissing off the people you are supposed to give an inspirational speech to

va1a

I've noticed, as a student, that many college students - particularly those not in STEM/engineering fields - have an almost irrational hatred of AI. It's to the point where they'll mock you for using it, even when it provides such an insane productivity boost. I understand the disdain for trying to inject the concept everywhere, and like any new technology, it's apt to be used where it is unneeded, and mentioned when it is irrelevant. But this luddite-like hatred needs also to be addressed. You can't turn your back on a helpful new technology just because it shakes things up. Students need to learn to use it more than constantly boo and ignore it. Especially those in non-STEM fields, where its usage might be more optional currently.

Sol-

200 years ago people would have booed the industrial revolution. They shouldn't boo the amazing technology, but instead cheer for this liberation from toil and find ways to equitably distribute its benefits.

oompydoompy74

Warms my heart. Tech executives and politicians need to be put in their place.

tamimio

>AI will take your job!! >AI will lower your wages!! >AI will be used to track you!! >AI will surveil you and profile you like never before!! Then they get surprised why they get booed. Even personally, I don’t think I met any person IRL that sees AI in a positive way. The only people who cheer for it are the techbros-AI-wrappers who want to sell you some slop SaaS, or the ones who benefit from its market manipulation and price gouging.

camillomiller

These people are so high on their own farts they completely lost the ability to think outside of their billionaires bubbles

d4rkp4ttern

I can see where it's coming from. Putting it starkly, at a high level, the broad effect of AI is this: devaluation of expertise, whether in coding, or drawing, or music composition, or writing, or translation, or so many other areas. College students working hard to gain expertise in specific areas are faced with the prospect that this very expertise is being "democratized" by AI, putting it in the hands of literally anyone. Sure, true expertise is still needed to "validate" (and train) the AI, etc, etc, but that's a small consolation. Relatedly, a year ago I was excited to learn the Rust language. Now I don't see the point (And I'm building tools with Rust). I'm sure this sentiment extends across fields.

dfxm12

It really highlights the disconnect between these executives and reality.

metalman

The kids are alright! "AI" is so bad that people dont have the time to hate it directly, and there lives are such that pragmatism forces them to identify exactly what the source of the problems in the world is,well at least when it stands up and blithers out loud strait at them.

thinkingemote

There is a dissonance here, can anyone help. It's weird. Doesnt anyone else see this? To me it feels like an anti-fur protest by people who themselves are wearing fur coats. Why don't we see news of academics happy that their students have made the u-turn they want? I thought the outcry against AI was from the universities themselves because the students have all happily embraced it and were using it all the time? But now the outcry seems to be by the students themselves? Are these different students? Maybe: they seem to be about to leave education instead of using it to pass their exams. They have got their certificates. If they are the same students, maybe it's about their use of AI? Perhaps the reaction is a kind of psychological effect of their use, an effect of shame or guilt? Or maybe its not about their personal use but about a wider adoption by other people and the change in the world around them? They don't see their own use of AI as relevant. Maybe its about the news stories? They all seem to be hype. Or perhaps it's a fashionable topic for the latest small protest movement? its news because its new, but its not a widespread movement or is it? Is it more like an anti-car protest by people who are forced to use cars and cant use public transport? So: Will we see the reduction of use by students on their work, and a kind of happiness by the academics on how their students want to learn properly?

rglover

Watching people push this stuff like this (in the face of clear public disapproval) feels like watching Uncut Gems. You can tell that they know the music is about to stop and they're all desperate to find a chair. They didn't update their playbook for the next generation and now their cards are showing. Short-term: oh boy. Long-term: phew .

mnmnmn

This is so so good

ChrisArchitect

Related: Eric Schmidt booed at University of Arizona after praising AI https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48172419 Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096674