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Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

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Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#51
post #3

Kind of goes to show how out of touch and insular the tech exec sphere can be. Almost everyone I interact with in reality has a deep distain for LLMs and their touted trajectory.

I find this a weird comment. Isn't this the same kind of out of touch? I could write: > Kind of goes to show how out of touch and insular the Hackernews commenter sphere can be. Almost everyone I interact with in reality loves LLMs and their touted trajectory. And it would hold mostly true for me. This goes to show we should all be aware of our respective bubbles.

I mean normal people shun LLM users so it’s no wonder it’s true for you.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#52
post #9
post #3

Kind of goes to show how out of touch and insular the tech exec sphere can be. Almost everyone I interact with in reality has a deep distain for LLMs and their touted trajectory.

The numbers speak for itself. What has had the same level of user growth?

If I use Google Search to do a search and I get an AI answer that I scroll past, do I count an AI user?

The numbers are not reliable.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#54
post #9
post #3

Kind of goes to show how out of touch and insular the tech exec sphere can be. Almost everyone I interact with in reality has a deep distain for LLMs and their touted trajectory.

The numbers speak for itself. What has had the same level of user growth?

People can like talking to gemini, but dislike claude taking their programming job.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#55
> “If you’d let me make this point, please —” Schmidt said amid boos. “The point I’d like to make is choose a diversity of perspectives, including the perspective of the immigrant who has so often been the person who came to this country and made it better. America is at its best when we are the country that ambitious people want to come to. Let us not lose that.”

How does that tie in? You have to like AI because of immigrants? AI is like an immigrant, you have to accept it? What’s the logic here, or he’s just throwing random phrases around, it seems.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#56
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it feels fake?

Ok, I'm not from US so maybe I'm missing something here. Why exactly does his speech feel fake?

The part where there will be jobs in the future. Not that I think Eric Schmidt or anyone else is responsible. The genie is out of the bottle and you can't put it back in, no individuals or companies or states can.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#57

> “The future is not yet finished. It is now your turn to shape it.” This just reads like "It's your fault if AI takes away everything you love. You clearly must have wanted it this way." Like, no? It's the responsibility of everyone implementing machine learning that it be used responsibly. It's not the fault of the general populace if you abuse them, in other words.

I’m pretty sure I heard the same quote at my high school and university graduation ceremonies, and those were many years before AI. It’s a standard way to inspire new grads, right?

I think yes, it just doesn't feel in good taste given the topic of his speech. It feels like the speech makes it imply icky things.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#58
post #19
post #3

Kind of goes to show how out of touch and insular the tech exec sphere can be. Almost everyone I interact with in reality has a deep distain for LLMs and their touted trajectory.

So who has driven the 1000x increased usage of AI in the past year or two? My mother is in her 60s and uses Gemini every day. These data centers aren’t being built for no reason.

curious what does she use it for?

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#59
post #3

Kind of goes to show how out of touch and insular the tech exec sphere can be. Almost everyone I interact with in reality has a deep distain for LLMs and their touted trajectory.

> Almost everyone I interact with in reality has a deep distain for LLMs and their touted trajectory.

The Western media is stoking these fears.

Asia is embracing AI. Japan is using it in anime. India is going wild with large and small business usage. All of my friends in India report how popular it is, and how they're using it to get work done. I don't even have to mention China.

I am sick of how our media is brainwashing people to hate one of the most important technological developments in our lifetime.

They tried doing this during the internet era too. When I was a kid, every newspaper was going on about how awful the internet was. Didn't stop me from jumping on IRC and learning to program.

Every single time disruption happens, there's a cacophony of ire and disdain. Musicians that hated "electronic" music. Digital photography. This one just happens to be broader and even more impacting, so you're hearing it everywhere.

These tools are immensely useful. They can empower individuals with superpowers, like wearing an exoskeleton.

The conversation is never about monopolization or consolidation of power, which is how this should be articulated. Instead, it's always "AI bad" or "think of the water". That is 10000% the wrong framing.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#60
post #33
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In reality they like LLMs because they're the highest user of them. Pew reported 64% of U.S. teens used AI chatbots, while a Harvard study found 51% of ages 14–22 had used generative AI at some point. What you answer on a survey is meaningless. Look at their actions. And no they're not being pressured to use LLMs, standards or expectations have not gone up dramatically. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowle…

Your last sentence is factually not true. Friends across five different companies report that LLM adoption is now a key metric in their performance review.

It’s mostly not students working those sorts of jobs. But I know people taking architecture and design courses that are heavily pushing LLM use. Hopefully that doesn’t exist outside of SF, though.
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