Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution

404media.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 242 posts

Re: Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution

#31

Post by xantronix »

richwater wrote: post #9
jklinger410 wrote: post #6

If you want people to like AI, show them a future that doesn't leave them in abject poverty.

That's quite an unsubstantiated leap. The world has gone through plenty of digital transformations and the number of people in poverty has only _shrank_.

It's hard not to make that leap when so many layoffs are (according to PR releases anyway) attributed to AI adoption. Even if the reality on the ground is that many of these workforce reductions are to make the balance sheets look better (presumably as a bet on AI), it's impossible to ignore the accelerating wealth gap, especially in the context of the gutting of regulations and state actors leveraging world events on prediction markets. We will not be given a fair deal if we simply wait for our benefactors to provide one.

Re: Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution

#32

Post by hello_moto »

KK7NIL wrote: post #8
happytoexplain wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused - you're suggesting that past suffering justifies present suffering?

He's pointing out that labor has always opposed labor saving technology, despite that being the basis of our modern quality of life.

Many people who pointed out the Industrial Revolution becomes the basis of modern quality of life skip what happened in between the 17xx-18xx until today.

Things like Unions, Wars, etc.

What comes after new technology has always been the elite class owning them all and forcing everybody else to suffer until something managed the distribution of resources slightly better (War forces that).

Re: Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution

#33

Post by lsy »

There's a very real possibility that AI proponents completely lose the next generation of adults. The output is not enjoyable to consume, the people who rely on it are not cool, and the effects of using it are unpleasant and hard to defend on aesthetic, intellectual, or moral grounds.

There are real use cases for this technology! But the idea that the generation of superficially plausible text is "the next Industrial Revolution" comes out of the same mindset that has turned a neat technology into a banal hellscape for consumers and employees. We desperately need some leadership in companies or institutions that can place this technology in its proper context, and leverage it without getting manic about it.

Re: Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution

#34

Post by hello_moto »

ForHackernews wrote: post #5
rgbrenner wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

was the industrial revolution oriented for ordinary people at the time it occurred? were a lot of workers buying flying shuttles in the 1700s?

No, that's why unions exist.

Unions and worker's rights exist because workers were exploited to the max during the Industrial Revolution.

Re: Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution

#35

Post by ryandrake »

deaux wrote: post #20

[flagged]

I mean, duh. Do we really think someone with the title of "vice president of strategic alliances at Tavistock Group" lives in the same universe as the rest of us? In her alternative universe, Zucc and Bezos are heroes to look up to. These people have no actual interaction with the rest of us, and just assume their world view is universally held.

Look how genuinely surprised she was by the audience's reaction. In their world, AI is an unambiguous good.

Re: Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution

#36

Post by jklinger410 »

trhway wrote: post #16
jklinger410 wrote: post #6

If you want people to like AI, show them a future that doesn't leave them in abject poverty.

[flagged]

> You can't have it both ways.

Yes you can. They use AI and also despise it because it will turn the world into one big caste system. Ones with access to compute, and ones without.

Re: Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution

#37

Post by anigbrowl »

richwater wrote: post #9
jklinger410 wrote: post #6

If you want people to like AI, show them a future that doesn't leave them in abject poverty.

That's quite an unsubstantiated leap. The world has gone through plenty of digital transformations and the number of people in poverty has only _shrank_.

The number of people in absolute poverty has shrunk, but the proportion of national income held by the wealthy has increased, so economic mobility is declining. There are many reasons for this, but typically deployment of technology is a capital expense and employers aim to realize all the gains from their investment, notwithstanding the upskilling and/or deskilling effect it has on workers, who are treated as fungible economic units rather than people. Nobody likes this except capitalists.

Re: Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution

#38

Post by JohnMakin »

lsy wrote: post #33

There's a very real possibility that AI proponents completely lose the next generation of adults. The output is not enjoyable to consume, the people who rely on it are not cool, and the effects of using it are unpleasant and hard to defend on aesthetic, intellectual, or moral grounds. There are real use cases for this technology! But the idea that the generation of superficially plausible text is "the next Industrial…

They have to frame it this way, because the market has invested in it being "the next internet" kind of event.

Re: Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution

#39

Post by jklinger410 »

Sh0000reZ wrote: post #22
danaris wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but during those transformations, the CEOs of the companies selling the products involved weren't actively and aggressively marketing them as being able to replace all the humans they employ . You can't have it both ways: either LLMs are an amazing, revolutionary technology that can replace many human jobs in unprecedented ways, or it's going to be a mild transition that really only helps people.

[flagged]

Why don't you show us how AI will not create abject poverty?

How are we not going to be begging whoever controls chip fabs and electrical plants for compute tokens? HOW!? EXPLAIN IT.

Re: Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution

#40

Post by pesus »

Sh0000reZ wrote: post #22
danaris wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but during those transformations, the CEOs of the companies selling the products involved weren't actively and aggressively marketing them as being able to replace all the humans they employ . You can't have it both ways: either LLMs are an amazing, revolutionary technology that can replace many human jobs in unprecedented ways, or it's going to be a mild transition that really only helps people.

[flagged]

How am I going to do any of that when I can't pay the bills and become homeless? That's what actually happens when you don't have jobs.
Post reply on HN