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Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution

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

#91
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…

> There's a very real possibility that AI proponents completely lose the next generation of adults.

The college-age students I interact with hate AI content from other people, but they love using AI for their own work.

They'll pump AI generated memes and AI altered images all day long. Then they'll use ChatGPT to do their homework and write their resume, then look for an AI tool that will spam apply to jobs for them. Then when they get the job they plan to use ChatGPT to level the playing field with more experienced, older peers.

That's not even getting into the AI entrepreneurs who think they're going to use AI to start a company or find a winning strategy to trade memecoins or bet on PolyMarket so they don't have to get a job at all.

I think the next generation is all-in on AI for their own use. They see it as their advantage over the boomers occupying all the good jobs. They think ChatGPT is their cheat code for getting into these companies and taking those jobs.

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

#92
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the Luddites were mad for a reason, and many may forget the industrial revolution was a rather bloody affair. Avoiding a repeat of that would be great while also increasing productivity would be good.

The Luddites were mad not because the machines put them out of work but because the machines were supremely shitty. The machines were dangerous and they made lousy products that reflected a lack of pride in workmanship. The Luddites were all for saving labor, but not if enshittified products and slavery to unreliable machines were the price. Sounds pretty familiar to me.

Many Luddites were protesting labor conditions. At the time the majority of labor laws were being written by the capital class with the help of political leaders and the constabulary. Common complaints were working hours, child labor, safety, wages, and protection from furlough. There were some who protested the quality of the product the machines created... but I would say those are the minority.

Destroying the machines was a way to gain leverage for a class of people who had none. People had been using looms for centuries. It wasn't the technology that was the problem... that's what the victors, the capitalists, have written was the reason.

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

#93
post #86

> College of Arts and Humanities and Nicholson School of Communication and Media Somehow I have a feeling that the reaction would have been totally different if it would have been the EECS graduates. Fear and rejection in certain professions is real and maybe even understandable. I imagine 25 years ago someone telling music graduates “streaming is the future of music distribution” would have received the same reactio…

I suspect for CS it would have been outright food riots. The humanities are probably the best insulated from AI as the uncanny valley is really obvious in AI literature and art. CS is the final stage in the “programming myself out of a job” meme which is quite depressing if you’re just getting your first job (or, more likely at the moment, not.)

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

#94
post #90
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…

IMHO shrugging it off as “superficially plausible text” is the extreme to the other side. We’re past plausible text since GPT-2 and it’s undeniable that the technology is making waves right now and is having an impact. As you can’t judge the impact of the Industrial Revolution by the first steam engines, you can’t dismiss the impact the technology is having right now.

In writing code, yes. But has there been an actual positive impact in other fields?

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

#95
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…

> The people who rely on it are not cool.

That's the only statement that's true. Admiting to AI use is unfashionable in the western world at this time.

But how much would you like to bet that 90% of those students who were booing also used AI to do their homework for them quite often? So your take away would be "the AI stole their education". No, they were dishonest and the AI helped them cheat themselves out of learning.

Technology doesn't make anything banal or a hellscape, or fire people. Technology is a lever.

If humans use AI to produce worse output because they are too lazy to bother reviewing and iterating on it, that is a human problem. If humans are going to use AI to help them exploit other humans more efficiently, that is also caused by the human rather than the technology.

Also, the ChatGPT moment for humanoid robots is coming this year or next. It will become very obvious that AI use in these robots is not just superficially plausible text.

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

#96
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…

[dead]

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

#97
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]

From what I can find online there is $12 billion in mortgages outstanding in the US[1]

ICE has an $80 billion budget.

Demand Congress pay off mortgages rather than hand Leon Skum tens of billions.

There you go. Stability.

[1] https://www.fhfa.gov/data/dashboard/nmdb-outstanding-residen...

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

#98
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…

My great hope for AI is that it kills social media by making 99% of content and comments untrustworthy and not worth consuming.

Twitter arguably did that a while ago.

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

#99
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the leading CEOs are saying the next generation will be unemployed due to AI... uh yeah, you're gonna lose them!

Isn't it bad now that Sam Altman and the others are backpedaling on this and going "jobs are going to still exist you just can't imagine them!" because the PR problem was getting so big? [1] Like don't we want people running these companies to be honest to the public rather than misdirection? [1]. https://www.platformer.news/sam-altman-ai-backlash/

Which one of those things he said do you consider "honest" and not PR? Both of them sound like PR to me, just aimed at different audiences

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

#100
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…

My great hope for AI is that it kills social media by making 99% of content and comments untrustworthy and not worth consuming.

If that happens, AI will have been worth the hassle.
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