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College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos

tomshardware.com

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Re: College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos

#81

Post by jerf »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #75
jerf wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College students had 4+ years to learn about the real issues before the graduation ceremory, and the rest of their lives after it. Rubbing every problem in the world in their face at a graduation ceremony is just gauche . To everything a time and a season. Not every second has to dedicated to "problems".

"Not every second has to dedicated to "problems"." I was a lot quicker to agree with this sentiment in prior decades where we had notionally fewer of them, the big ones seemed better understood, and the folks managing the levers of power at least managed the appearance of competence.

There has never been a commencement speech made when the speaker couldn't have spent the entire time speaking about problems. Ever. Not even one. It has always been possible to spin an hour of doom and gloom about the future, based on 100% real problems.

A commencement speech is not the time or place for that.

I'm not saying it has to be 100% upbeat each time, just that it is not the time or place for an enumeration of problems.

It won't even do any good. What are they supposed to do with this that they weren't already doing? It's not like the world was sunshine and rainbows for all of them up to this point and the commencement speech is the correct time to disabuse them of that notion. This isn't your one chance to reach them with news of doom. It's your one chance to send them off and maybe encourage them to fight the doom. It is appalling to miss out on that opportunity because you've got an axe to grind and don't understand that not every opportunity to grind it is appropriate. Actively depressing and discouraging them is almost certainly achieving the opposite of what even you want to achieve.

Re: College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos

#82

Post by chasd00 »

jerf wrote: post #73
forgetfreeman wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first step in resolving any problem is acknowledging that it exists. Ignoring real issues in favor of comfortable narratives is insane.

College students had 4+ years to learn about the real issues before the graduation ceremory, and the rest of their lives after it. Rubbing every problem in the world in their face at a graduation ceremony is just gauche . To everything a time and a season. Not every second has to dedicated to "problems".

Totally agree, cut the kids a break and give them a pat on the back and tell them something inspiring! Try to remember what it was like to be in their shoes on that day.

Edit: I don’t mean “kids” in a condescending way, I just mean young people taking the first steps into adulthood and careers.

Re: College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos

#84

Post by whizzter »

tdeck wrote: post #34
analogpixel wrote: post #17

> Tennessee State University suggested AI was "rewriting production as we sit here" and told his audience to "deal with it" as they jeered him in response. Guess it doesn't take much to see what's under the mask.

For folks that didn't read the article, it seems he was talking about music production.

Yeah, people in art production are far far more negative about AI than most sceptical developers.

I wouldn't be surprised if a huge percentage of concept artists are out of jobs or changing specialization these days (Creating a throwaway image for a pitch or imaging document can probably be as easily conveyed through a prompt and the people looking at them are probably often not savvy enough to appreciate the difference).

Where the music industry goes will be interesting, knowledgeable musicians are way too into fiddling/toying to feel any need for AI tools, but since music is pretty much an industry these days fed by promotion, it isn't far fetched that bedroom "AI" artists can leapfrog established ones.. the question is if it'll stick if they can't reach the pinnacles (megahits is part of it, but concerts still seem to matter quite a bit, and an AI won't help you perform even if Milli Vanilli might disagree).

Re: College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos

#86

Post by cyclopeanutopia »

RickJWagner wrote: post #26

I’d be anxious, too, if I were just starting my career. Those kids just invested a lot of time and money in an education, and the payoff looks a lot like a gamble. But AI is going to help, not hurt in the long run. Technology always makes things better and cheaper in the long run. Poverty diminishes, free time increases, things truly do get better over time. This’ll be a short term bump, but it’ll be a steep one.

> Technology always makes things better and cheaper in the long run.

How so?

Re: College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos

#87

Post by larodi »

bix6 wrote: post #21
jackdoe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in contrast with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kids_Aren%27t_Alright

When we were young the future was so bright woahohh The old neighborhood was so alive woahohh

"When you were young, the light shined so bright. Shine on, you crazy diamond"

a song from the same bygone time, we'll romanticizing about, we've not really even started romanticizing about yet.

Re: College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos

#89

Post by Nasrudith »

nehal3m wrote: post #46
analog31 wrote: post #41

The same people who are being boo'd for being AI tycoons would have been cheered by the same students 4 years ago for just being tycoons. I hope everybody reflects on the fact that it's the same people.

Am I out of touch? No, it’s the children who are wrong.

[flagged]

Re: College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos

#90

Post by r_lee »

pickleglitch wrote: post #71
teekert wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what is he supposed to say? "Ok let's stop developing AI so you can all have the exact job you trained for?" That hasn't been the case for decades. When I left my eduction I could sequence 200 basepairs using gels. Now I process terabytes of NGS data on supercomputers. I dealt with it, I enjoyed it. Edit: Not saying these kids have nothing to rage against, they can't afford houses, are uninsured, they face a huge…

>But why so anti AI specifically I think maybe AI is just the last straw for many people. If capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production, AI represents the ultimate dream of the capitalist: the elimination of the need of human labor entirely. Whether or not it can achieve that is secondary to the goal itself. Grads are facing a brutal job market where much of what they just spent several years of t…

> It's not like your gradual transition from sequencing with gels to using supercomputers over the long course of a career.

this. I don't understand why people here are pretending like its not a big deal.

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