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

Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

nbcnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 445 posts

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#61

Post by davemp »

bko wrote: post #21
davemp wrote: 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.

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…

usage != positive opinion

I don’t like driving in traffic yet I do it pretty much every day. Why don’t I simply not drive?

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#62

Post by new_account_100 »

Kiro wrote: post #39
davemp wrote: 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.

If that's true you're equally out of touch and live in an echo chamber.

The only people who are really correct are the moderates.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#63

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

nilirl wrote: post #8

> Schmidt urged graduates to embrace freedom, open debate, equality and the willingness to engage with those they disagree with. I think it was a great embrace of freedom and open debate to boo him for only asserting predictions that benefit him.

> Schmidt urged graduates to embrace freedom.

> graduates embraced freedom and boo'd schmidt.

Schmidt: No, not like that!

I think that the deeper topic is that there is a sense of double-speak going around, they mean freedom but what they really mean is to use the word and its meaning and to attach it to their own goals, in this case AI because google has a vested interest in that.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#64

Post by berkay »

nilirl wrote: post #8

> Schmidt urged graduates to embrace freedom, open debate, equality and the willingness to engage with those they disagree with. I think it was a great embrace of freedom and open debate to boo him for only asserting predictions that benefit him.

It's not clear to me why they booed him. you think for only asserting predictions that benefit him? Not because they agree on those predictions and don't want that future, blame him for this role in it?

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#65

Post by dominotw »

imadhiskenderbe wrote: post #34
lazide wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what hope exactly?

From what I read, he stated that even the coming of computers in the first place threatened many jobs, also many fresh graduates felt probably the same way back then, but everything worked out in the end.

"everything works out in the end"

lol that should fill them with hope and confidence. great speech.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#66

Post by Zigurd »

xt00 wrote: post #35

Tons of CEOs right now keep saying “young people need to learn how to use AI to be successful” and also “we aren’t planning to hire any new college grads due to AI”.. so which one is it.. seems everybody understands the super pro AI CEOs want to lay off nearly the entire company and run it on skeleton crew with a ton of AI and get ultra rich. While “some other” companies should totally hire lots of young people but n…

It's worse than having to pick one position or the other: both are hypocritical, and both are deceptive hype mongering.

Layoffs credited, or blamed depend depending on your point of view, on AI are mostly a product of herd mentality. As for the advice to learn how to use AI, that's advice that suffers from internal inconsistency. If AI is so embodying of human expertise, why does one have to learn the correct way to use that expertise?

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#67

Post by philipwhiuk »

cj wrote: post #6
davemp wrote: 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.

> Schmidt then drew a parallel between artificial intelligence and the transformative impact of the computer — and was immediately met with boos. That's a shame. I assume the reason for the "deep distain" is rooted in fear of change, fear that LLM will make it harder to have a successful career. That's a pretty negative mindset to have as a college grad just entering the workforce. I'm not an AI fan boy, but we can't…

> I'm not an AI fan boy, but we can't cover our eyes and cover our ears and pretend the world isn't changing.

You imply that the change is inevitable. AI isn't inevitable.

It requires governments to allow the construction of datacentres and for companies to be able to spend vast amounts of money they don't have for the hope of future return, which will inevitably result in a too-big-to-fail cascade which gets money dragged out of the middle/lower class via slogans like "we're all in this together".

None of this is required. The idea that humanity is stuck on this future pathway is frankly bunk.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#68

Post by new_account_100 »

nilirl wrote: post #8

> Schmidt urged graduates to embrace freedom, open debate, equality and the willingness to engage with those they disagree with. I think it was a great embrace of freedom and open debate to boo him for only asserting predictions that benefit him.

[flagged]

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#69

Post by echelon »

petra wrote: post #54
10xDev wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then start using DeepSeek.

Don't use distilled little RTX models on your frankensteined home PC like a 0.00001%er who misses the ergonomics Claude Code solves. That's a "Year of Linux on Desktop 2010" grade failure waiting to happen.

Rent cloud instances and spin up thick model weights and contribute to the open source infrastructure for making this easy for everyone to use.

The hyperscalers should be eaten by cheap, competent, cloud-based open source.

Be the change you want to see.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#70

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

ramon156 wrote: post #26
WilcoKruijer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Imo there's a priority you should have for the generation below you. Just like how you clean up for your next week's self, you clean up for the next generation. Make sure you don't leave the world on fire before you dip. Two generations have failed at this, now's your chance to break the streak. But maybe I'm just a hippie, who knows.

As someone gen-z, I think that we are just the ones facing the double it and give it to the next generation problem.

i do not doubt that there were people like you who saw the problems and perhaps even wanted to fix it, but I cant help but wonder where it all went wrong.

also there is no guarantee for anything that gen-z wouldn't try to pass it to the next generation either. It's a ticking time bomb, Tick tock.

Post reply on HN