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Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

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Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#101

Post by coolThingsFirst »

vitally3643 wrote: post #57
mbgerring wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who are faced with this question are so far removed from the idea that losing your job means not being able to eat or pay rent that it seems pointless to ask them. Whenever I try to get serious answers to this question I get far-future projections about how much better people’s lives will be in the aggregate, at some point in the future, on the assumption that their baseless, faith-based projections about…

The "I got mine, fuck you" mindset is genuinely going to be the death of the USA. It's genuinely astonishing how many people are willing to burn everything including their own house to spite random strangers.

That's how envy looks like. I made it, so now let's remove the ladder for the others.

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#102

Post by JohnFen »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #78
littlexsparkee wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the economic system rewards depravity - the more constraints you self-impose, the fewer opportunities for profit

I'm not entirely sure there are rewards for depravity, but your second point is certainly true. The more willing you are to work within the bounds of "legal, but probably reprehensible" the more business opportunities you have.

That working within the bounds of "legal but reprehensible" gives increased opportunities is a great example of how our system rewards depravity.

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#103

Post by wat10000 »

neksn wrote: post #36
ethanplant wrote: post #5

I’m genuinely confused as to why the speakers are baffled by the boos. Everyone, and especially new grads constantly hear that AI is going to replace every job. And absolutely no one seems to be interested in answering the question of “okay, then what?” Of course people are going to react negatively when they hear, “the machines are going to take your jobs from you. No, we don’t care how you’ll be able to pay your re…

> And absolutely no one seems to be interested in answering the question of “okay, then what?” I don’t see why the people being booed should be responsible for answering this question. How many such questions did the inventor of the tractor have to answer?

Imagine if the inventor of the tractor went to a college for farm workers (if there were such a thing) and gave a commencement speech that was all, "Tractors are going to revolutionize farming by making your jobs obsolete." I think it would be fair to expect some answers about how the new graduates should handle that. Or maybe Mr. Tractor should just stay home if he doesn't have the answers or doesn't want to face the crowd.

This isn't "people are upset with AI and demanding answers from the people creating it." This is, "the creators are showing up at schools and giving speeches about how everyone is fucked, and this is getting a bad reaction for some unfathomable reason."

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#104

Post by jandrese »

mbgerring wrote: post #16
ethanplant wrote: post #5

I’m genuinely confused as to why the speakers are baffled by the boos. Everyone, and especially new grads constantly hear that AI is going to replace every job. And absolutely no one seems to be interested in answering the question of “okay, then what?” Of course people are going to react negatively when they hear, “the machines are going to take your jobs from you. No, we don’t care how you’ll be able to pay your re…

The people who are faced with this question are so far removed from the idea that losing your job means not being able to eat or pay rent that it seems pointless to ask them. Whenever I try to get serious answers to this question I get far-future projections about how much better people’s lives will be in the aggregate, at some point in the future, on the assumption that their baseless, faith-based projections about…

Elon Musk is a great example of what happens when you lose grasp on reality. He's been spouting post-scarcity nonsense for some time now like humanity is anywhere close to achieving it. And worst of all, his grand plan is to build expensive sentient humanoid robot slaves to achieve it. The timeline to achieve it is really short, like 20 years.

It's like the ultimate end-game of capitalism. Once Elon has every single last dollar he has "won" and humanity can transition to a post-market economy. This is why you never let game theory guys anywhere near positions of actual power.

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#106

Post by glitchc »

DonsDiscountGas wrote: post #90

> “His speech was incredibly disrespectful to students,” said Malone. “We as students are discouraged from using it and penalized for using it. And then to have our speaker be the champion of AI is just like, OK? Why?” It's a perfectly fair question and the answer is that being a practitioner is different from being a student. If you want to hear some nice music you can learn to play and then record yourself, or you…

But they are learning to practice, at least in some of the courses (others are focused on much-needed theory).

It's like forcing students to write code by hand because using an editor would give away too much. And I know first-hand that CS education used to do precisely this as I have proctored such exams myself. What needs a rethink is how education, especially CS education, is imparted given the existence of these tools.

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#107

Post by dfxm12 »

pesus wrote: post #80
weard_beard wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEOs: “Do something about it.” Luigi Mangione: … CEOs: “Not like that… I’m not suggesting that it’s a good response. I’m suggesting that this interpretation of what CEOs are saying is wrong.

People will downvote you because the idea of violence shocks and scares them, but if you steal people's future and strip them of any real (peaceful) options to change things, it becomes inevitable some of them will try to fight back with what few options they do have left.

The status quo of health insurance in the US ("delay, deny, defend") is structural violence. This isn't about fear of violence, they just have different politics...

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#108

Post by [deleted] »

ch4s3 wrote: post #76
weard_beard wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEOs: “Do something about it.” Luigi Mangione: … CEOs: “Not like that… I’m not suggesting that it’s a good response. I’m suggesting that this interpretation of what CEOs are saying is wrong.

This is a deeply sick way of thinking. Mangione was and is a fool, a 3rd rate thinker. His manifesto is muddled, factually mistaken, and by his own words he understood the topic poorly. You only need a cursory knowledge of the late 60s and early 70s to know that political violence rarely achieves its aims and is much more likely to empower reactionaries. There's no quick fix for political change.

[deleted]

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#109

Post by happytoexplain »

bawolff wrote: post #91
happytoexplain wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said 100%. Not on average. Billions of humans are more complicated than that. We can be elevated in some ways while being degraded in others. I.e. progress is not free, and some costs last forever , they are not only up-front. Ignoring the costs is deadly.

This view seems morally rephrensible. Basically everything you just said could be used to justify slavery or any atrocity you want.

Anything can be used to endorse anything if you twist the underlying implications enough. Good news: I promise I don't endorse those things.

I don't think you're coming at this from a place of thoughtfulness (it's a tough, broad topic).

Saying that people are correct to resist does not imply the endorsement of any actions, it just means that people are correct to resist against things that harm their lives and their children's lives, even if it theoretically makes life easier for their grandchildren (which isn't even clearly true in this case, making my point even more valid).

I.e. it's OK for humans to behave in the interest of their own. This can be a really tough point with complicated implications, but it's fundamentally unassailable.

Re: Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

#110

Post by jandrese »

ethanplant wrote: post #5

I’m genuinely confused as to why the speakers are baffled by the boos. Everyone, and especially new grads constantly hear that AI is going to replace every job. And absolutely no one seems to be interested in answering the question of “okay, then what?” Of course people are going to react negatively when they hear, “the machines are going to take your jobs from you. No, we don’t care how you’ll be able to pay your re…

It's not hard to see why someone like him might not want to understand the unpopularity of a technology that they have bet their company on. A man can believe almost anything if his paycheck depends on it.

Also, from his perspective these kids are just fools who spent tens of thousands of dollars studying buggy whip manufacturing just as the automobile was invented.

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