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College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos

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

#161

Post by whatshisface »

lenerdenator wrote: post #148
gruez wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and fervently pushed by people over 55. Source? I think you're conflating "pushed by CEOs" (which might lean on the older side) with "pushed by people over 55".

CEOs are hired by boards. Boards are hired by shareholders. Most publicly-traded American companies have their shares held by pension and retirement funds. Pension and retirement funds exist to send money to people over 55.

I'm sure VPs are sweating bullets over the instructions they will receive during the part of the shareholder's call where mutual fund managers dial their members and hold the phones up to each other.

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

#162

Post by chadgpt3 »

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…

Please don't use HN to advocate for violence.

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

#163

Post by weezin »

ghaff wrote: post #12

Correctly or not (probably to some degree correctly) new grads are hearing AI is a major reason why they're having trouble finding jobs which is simultaneously 1.) Probably mostly has always been the case--I no longer have the vast sheaf of rejection letters when I ever got one at all and 2.) Is anecdotally actually the case for a variety of reasons that also include pandemic overhiring and probably an out-sized AI e…

Agreed, AI is a convenient excuse. If we had covid level interest rates these graduates would have a lot easier time finding a job. Companies are downsizing their bets and counting pennies to cash flow to invest in AI infra, which they wouldn't need to do in a low interest environment.

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

#164

Post by ChrisArchitect »

2 days old news OP;

[dupe]

The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48188310

Eric Schmidt booed at University of Arizona after praising AI

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48172419

Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096674

Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48177107

An AI Hate Wave Is Here

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48173318

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

#165

Post by JohnFen »

romaniv wrote: post #106

GenAI is the first technology that I've ever seen that is actively rejected by young adults and fervently pushed by people over 55. It seems Eric Schmids of the world think they (in their 70s) have more say about the future of these students than the students themselves. That is very unlikely.

> fervently pushed by people over 55.

It is?

I know very few people in that age group who are excited by this stuff.

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

#166

Post by gruez »

lenerdenator wrote: post #148
gruez wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and fervently pushed by people over 55. Source? I think you're conflating "pushed by CEOs" (which might lean on the older side) with "pushed by people over 55".

CEOs are hired by boards. Boards are hired by shareholders. Most publicly-traded American companies have their shares held by pension and retirement funds. Pension and retirement funds exist to send money to people over 55.

By that definition anything that happens in politics or corporate america is "fervently pushed by people over 55", because that's the group with the most political and economic power. AI push? Boomers. Datacenter backlash? Boomers. ESG push? Boomers. ESG backlash? Boomers.

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

#167

Post by hnlmorg »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #74
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.

The "boos" are an indication that kids finally understand who to blame. In a dark time, that's a ray of hope: the kids are alright.

> the kids finally understand who to blame

You do realise that “sticking it to the man” is something that kids are uniquely good at?

This isn’t something that’s only just happened in the last generation. It’s how society has operated since before we lived in caves.

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

#168

Post by jordanb »

gruez wrote: post #124
romaniv wrote: post #106

GenAI is the first technology that I've ever seen that is actively rejected by young adults and fervently pushed by people over 55. It seems Eric Schmids of the world think they (in their 70s) have more say about the future of these students than the students themselves. That is very unlikely.

>and fervently pushed by people over 55. Source? I think you're conflating "pushed by CEOs" (which might lean on the older side) with "pushed by people over 55".

I dunno I'm on some forums with normal older people and they're much more likely to post AI content from YouTube or paste "I asked AI" quotes from chatgpt or even post their own "prompted GAI illustrations" as one guy put it.

Every time there is push back from younger posters followed by a bit of a generational faceoff.

I think boomers are still inclined to see technology as exciting space-race stuff. As a millennial I remember when the Internet was good but that also feels like a distant memory.

For younger people technology has been dark patterns and skinner boxes and increasingly imposed on them against their will from COVID tela-learning to AI mandates.

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

#169

Post by anentropic »

teekert wrote: post #45
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.

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…

we could just ban so-called AI "music"

nothing bad would happen, no one would lose anything

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

#170

Post by sumeno »

servo_sausage wrote: post #145
tdeck wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why so anti AI specfically? Because society is structured so that every time some labor-saving innovation comes along, it's used as a tool to drive down wages and reduce workers' bargaining power. And they leaders of these industries aren't exactly hiding it. You might be able to game it in the short term, but It's not like anyone is seriously thinking this will reduce the totality of our efforts in the long te…

Innovation can make specific skills obsolete; but only if the output of the process actually gets cheaper or better... It results in the output becoming available to people at a lower price point. It's not some artificial social system like unions guilds or cartels, it's a tangible thing that actually produces more output with less (or different) workers.

If the tech CEO dream that they are selling that LLMs replace all white collar work within a few years who is going to have money to buy anything at the lower price point?
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