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

College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos

tomshardware.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 405 posts

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

#91

Post by bluefirebrand »

skrebbel wrote: post #76
Fraterkes wrote: post #61

Apart from being tonedeaf, this stuff just strikes me as very lazy. Who still needs to be told that AI is new and transformative? Getting the privilege of monologueing to a crowd of people on one of the biggest days of their lives, and then just throwing out a bunch of obvious cliches... pretty damning imo.

I think this is the key point. HN commenters on this thread and related ones like to assume everybody’s an activist luddite but actually I bet the majority of the audience is just rolling their eyes at the amount of open doors being kicked in while being forced to sit still and listen to that drivel.

Which is why they booed the mention of AI specifically, surely.

It's because they're bored of the speech, not because they're angry at the hearing praise for the technology that is poised to fuck up their careers and futures

You can be pissed off about AI without being an "activist luddite" you know

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

#92

Post by OutOfHere »

mekdoonggi wrote: post #78
OutOfHere wrote: post #62

By rejecting AI, these students have a particularly bad future ahead. Rejecting reality doesn't make reality bend to you. Due to this rejection, they risk having few jobs, then no jobs. The Schmidts of the world have negative sympathy for such deniers.

They aren't rejecting it at all. They are expressing their opinion on it which is hugely negative. Why? Because it's a useful technology, but so far has succeeded in taking jobs away, poisoning minds, art, and politics, hoovering up all the capital, and getting shoved into every possible thing. The billionaires tell us over and over, "Get on board or you'll starve!" and I am certain they will be stunned when they mee…

> They aren't rejecting it at all. They are expressing their opinion on it which is hugely negative.

It is one and the same.

> I am certain they will be stunned when they meet the rude end of a pitchfork.

Is that a threat? Also, do you understand how the police and government work, and whose side they will take? Even if magically the government were on the side of the luddites, which they won't be, China would then take over the country hurriedly by its embrace of AI. This is why the US military is embracing AI. I don't think you or the graduates have the faintest idea of how aggressively and pervasively China is using AI.

> in taking jobs away

The people should be asking for basic assistance benefits, and the graduates should striving to automate more so that even more people can have these benefits. This is the only answer that could be fully consistent with reality. Doing repetitive dumb work is appropriate for ants, not humans. These graduates want a salary without competitively delivering value, and that's not going to happen.

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

#94

Post by bckr »

Ecstatify wrote: post #72
tedggh wrote: post #25

Eric Schmidt’s speech was particularly bad regardless of the subject, his condescending tone alone deserved the booing.

Not the only issue people have issues with: > Ritter filed a lawsuit in November that alleged Schmidt, a former chief executive and chairman of Google, “forcibly raped” her while on a yacht off the coast of Mexico in 2021. > She also claimed they had sex without her consent during the 2023 Burning Man festival in Nevada. ref: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-03-06/former-goo...

When you have everything but can’t even keep your hands to yourself. Shameful.

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

#95

Post by analogpixel »

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.

that must be a good message:

- you all like music enough to go to a four year program and spend lots of money to study it.

- you all probably have been creating music since you were a child and really love it.

- well....

- people don't actually like music like you, and just want content; non-stop content.

- we now have a magic button that can make content by ripping off every previous artist we've trained our models on.

- now that everyone has access to this magic button, music has become even more worthless and the only people that'll make money from it are the people running the streaming services like spotify.

- if you do happen to create some original content, we'll just suck it into our giant copy machine and use it to out you you.

- good luck, have fun, and make sure to pay those student loans back.

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

#96

Post by bckr »

lokar wrote: post #85
tedggh wrote: post #25

Eric Schmidt’s speech was particularly bad regardless of the subject, his condescending tone alone deserved the booing.

Condescension is one of his core skills. Ask any long time googler

Oh yeah, he’s the one who said glue people are useless

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

#97

Post by JohnFen »

nemomarx wrote: post #57
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.

How short term do you think it'll be, and how confident are you in that? If it takes until these kids are in their 30s their careers will be pretty affected. "maybe the next generation of kids after you will be fine" isn't super comforting.

If the genAI cheerleaders are correct, and this is a change much like the industrial revolution, then things will be horrible for the average person for multiple generations.

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

#98

Post by footy »

bix6 wrote: post #30

Imagine bringing a new technology into the world, telling everyone it’s gonna take everything from them including possibly their literal lives, and then telling a bunch of kids to get on board or they’re gonna miss the billionaire rocket ship! lol these people are so out of touch.

imagine using that rocket ship analogy in a world where OceanGate happened. You don't get on a moving ship without asking questions.

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

#99

Post by somelamer567 »

Unfortunately, this is typical of the feral business overclass. It seems that the rampant Trump regime, the advent of AI, the long-term decline of the United States, coupled with the complete impunity the business class were granted during the 2008 crisis, has gone to their heads. The hate saddens, but doesn't surprise me.

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

#100

Post by dylan604 »

Ecstatify wrote: post #72
tedggh wrote: post #25

Eric Schmidt’s speech was particularly bad regardless of the subject, his condescending tone alone deserved the booing.

Not the only issue people have issues with: > Ritter filed a lawsuit in November that alleged Schmidt, a former chief executive and chairman of Google, “forcibly raped” her while on a yacht off the coast of Mexico in 2021. > She also claimed they had sex without her consent during the 2023 Burning Man festival in Nevada. ref: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-03-06/former-goo...

Trying to wrap my head around how one can still be around someone in 2023 after what happened in 2021. This confusion no way justifies what happened nor am I blaming anyone. I just don't understand it.
Post reply on HN