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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

#271

Post by triceratops »

lenerdenator wrote: post #140
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.

Follow the money. People over 55 are most concerned about one thing: retirement. Retirement, by definition, requires living off of money that you did not labor for. In the US, you do this by holding assets that yield returns on your investment. Over the last half-century, we've made returning that yield the main objective of publicly-traded corporations to the complete exclusion of everything else. People like Schmid…

> Retirement, by definition, requires living off of money that you did not labor for

So like you just get handed money to retire without ever working a day in your life? Please tell how this works I want some of that.

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

#272

Post by saghm »

mschuster91 wrote: post #114
bckr wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's a common issue. When you got everything you could possibly want in life or have enough money to buy whatever you want... then for quite a lot of people of either gender, the illegal and illicit becomes the next thing to obtain. For some, it's an increasingly worrisome amount (and type of) drugs, for others, it's women, and for a select few it's children.

> When you got everything you could possibly want in life or have enough money to buy whatever you want... then for quite a lot of people of either gender, the illegal and illicit becomes the next thing to obtain.

But with a society that empowers men more than women, and relative power disparities of all types lending themselves to behavior like this (plenty of people who don't have everything still have enough power to exploit those they have power over). In the abstract, sure, it might not be something inherent to men, but it's kind of hard to ignore the fact that in practice women are victimized by behavior like this at a system level that men are not.

To any men who are dubious about this, I'd genuinely suggest asking the women who you have close enough relationships with to be comfortable having tough discussions if they'd be willing to tell you about experiences they've had where men have behaved poorly towards them in ways that wouldn't have likely happened to a man in their circumstances; I'm guessing that pretty much all of them will have experienced far more than you'd imagine. As a man, I'm relatively certain I can't recall any instance of ever experiencing the reverse of this though, and that's my point: going out of your way to try to frame this as a gender-neutral issue basically emphasizes theoretical concerns at the expense of the actual distribution of problems that people face in real life. When things are so slanted that in practice almost everyone in one group has experienced it but relatively few from another group has had the same experience, framing it in terms of that is important.

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

#273

Post by hopfenspergerj »

SirMaster wrote: post #255
honeycrispy wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you trying to say? That AI benefited the students because they skipped their homework?

I am trying to understand how many of the students are complaining about AI when they themselves may have been using it a great deal. Because that seems hypocritical.

I can be pressured to use it at work to keep up with others who use it, while simultaneously knowing that it is eroding and devaluing my skills, and wishing that we could all stop using it together.

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

#274

Post by softwaredoug »

Tech execs made choices that made the public hostile to AI. They told everyone they were going to lose their jobs a not participate in the upside (implication: they get all the wealth). They cozied up to a corrupt administration that stripped public benefits while enriching themselves (now from tax dollars). They forced towns to accept environmentally toxic data centers that take their water/power

We’re all going to suffer the economic consequences of being left behind in AI (and other fields) all because execs wanted to double down on privatize the gains / socialize the losses.

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

#275

Post by 12_throw_away »

DonsDiscountGas wrote: post #263
smallmancontrov wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That statement makes sense for Eric Schmidt but not the random real estate executive. I'm pretty sure they're just taking their anger out at the nearest target

lol the real estate executive celebrating how they've using "AI" to destroy the housing market is maybe not just the "nearest target"

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

#276

Post by smallmancontrov »

DonsDiscountGas wrote: post #263
smallmancontrov wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That statement makes sense for Eric Schmidt but not the random real estate executive. I'm pretty sure they're just taking their anger out at the nearest target

Before GenAI came for their jobs, real estate was more extractive on the younger generation and it wasn't close: the median financed phone is $30/mo while median rent is $1500/mo. We generally find RE less interesting here because it has a scale ceiling and low returns-to-intelligence (compare Elon Musk to Donald Trump) but it's the oldest hustle and it never went away.

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

#277

Post by philipwhiuk »

softwaredoug wrote: post #274

Tech execs made choices that made the public hostile to AI. They told everyone they were going to lose their jobs a not participate in the upside (implication: they get all the wealth). They cozied up to a corrupt administration that stripped public benefits while enriching themselves (now from tax dollars). They forced towns to accept environmentally toxic data centers that take their water/power We’re all going to…

> They told everyone they were going to lose their jobs

They didn't just tell everyone, they stopped hiring and started firing despite already making double digit YoY profits.

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

#278

Post by vanviegen »

threethirtytwo wrote: post #223
hermannj314 wrote: post #31

"After my speech for the troops about how we are losing in Iran, my speech to children with cancer about how we've gutted research, sure I can then give a speech to people entering the job market about how AI is ruining the job market" Perfect, that's exactly the message of despair we want to send! (How I imagine picking these speakers goes at every college campus)

what do people need to hear? inspiration or truth? Personally I want the cold awful truth. But I think humanity in general thrives on inspiration and delusion.

Cold awful truth is fine, but people do need some perspective.

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

#279

Post by philipwhiuk »

steelkilt wrote: post #174
mpalmer wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't need much help, the industry's incentives are not aligned with the public interest.

Disruption, by definition, has winners and losers and the losers tend to be more visible, more vocal, and more immediate than the winners.

Who are the winners? Where's the profitable billion dollar industry?

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

#280

Post by tavavex »

mbfg wrote: post #262
tavavex wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their behaviors feel so detached and alien to me. Here are my hypotheses: - They love AI and are so self-absorbed that they struggle to think of other people's perspectives. They only view it through their own lens and are oblivious to it. So, to them, others' opinions should mirror theirs, which is why it doesn't register for them. - They know of the impacts their ideas will have, but think that the positives will s…

you could have stopped with AI makes them rich. Why cares about anyone else.

But it's not that simple. The point I'm making is that their reaction to making money also feels very inhuman.

Suppose your comapny just won a key contract, putting your competitors out of business. Would you go to stand on a stage in front of the other business, gleefully talking about how your victory will upset the industry? How it's a sign of the changing times, but a blessing in disguise because those employees get a chance to move to another career, or practice valuable budgeting and social skills in the line to the food bank?

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