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

Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

nbcnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 185 posts

Re: Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

#131

Post by myaccountonhn »

beloch wrote: post #76
va1a wrote: post #31

I've noticed, as a student, that many college students - particularly those not in STEM/engineering fields - have an almost irrational hatred of AI. It's to the point where they'll mock you for using it, even when it provides such an insane productivity boost. I understand the disdain for trying to inject the concept everywhere, and like any new technology, it's apt to be used where it is unneeded, and mentioned when…

Everybody pays the price for AI, but relatively few benefit. Power is more expensive because data centres are using so much of it. Climate change is a tougher problem to solve because we're trying to reduce emissions while the energy requirements of big AI companies is eclipsing that of some nations . GHG emissions are going up when they need to go down. Computer hardware prices are through the roof. Fresh graduates,…

> energy requirements of big AI companies is eclipsing that of some nations

I've heard so many different takes on this. Where did you get this information?

Re: Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

#132

Post by gedy »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #77
Levitz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the first three sound completely awesome and the latter two are basically propaganda. "innovating misinformation vectors" and "might doom humanity" are far better descriptors for about every social network out there, or even the internet. These same people would probably riot if social media was made to disappear. As everything regarding college campuses opinion nowadays, it's down to politics. It's not about…

I think to most people, "you won't have to work any more" sounds like a good thing, except in our current society, it means "oh by the way, you and your children will starve".

"you won't have to work any more at our company"

Re: Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

#133

Post by LtWorf »

damnitbuilds wrote: post #115
seltzerboys wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

disagreeing with something is part of discourse? booing is a practice as old as the practice of giving lectures in front of an audience. there's nothing 'newfangled' or 'woke' or 'scary' about booing something.

No, booing is not what is wrong. I might myself boo at someone trying to glorify an AI-led future. What is wrong is reporting the new student politics without the appropriate derision for the simplistic, biased views of students, and not condemning their simplistic, biased professors who inculcate only those biased views, who no longer teach students to respect and investigate other views, who instead teach them to v…

Who tells you their views are simplistic?

There's only so much you can articulate while being a random person in a crowd and not a millionaire who can spread his ideas as much as he wants.

Re: Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

#134

Post by LtWorf »

damnitbuilds wrote: post #42
LtWorf wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, can you explain what the link with "woke" is in this video?

People used to treat angry-student politics and the views of the noisiest, angriest students with the correct amount of derision. That stopped ( as seen here ). And, worse, social media has let those angry students drive debate, which has led to the rise of the hateful woke. And, still worse, students are no longer being educated to be critical but to accept one side and hate the other.

And you draw all these conclusions from a 1 minute clip?

Could it be that you are letting your own bias influence you?

Re: Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

#135

Post by soupspaces »

d4rkp4ttern wrote: post #98

I can see where it's coming from. Putting it starkly, at a high level, the broad effect of AI is this: devaluation of expertise, whether in coding, or drawing, or music composition, or writing, or translation, or so many other areas. College students working hard to gain expertise in specific areas are faced with the prospect that this very expertise is being "democratized" by AI, putting it in the hands of literally…

I see your point but it's the wrong framing I think. The etymology of education is “to train, mold, nurture”, “to draw out.". Task output can be emulated more cheaply, sure.

Re: Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

#136

Post by d4rkp4ttern »

vitally3643 wrote: post #118
snowwrestler wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, expertise is more important when working with AI, because it can make mistakes. Expertise is the ability to predict, understand, and mitigate such mistakes. In science for example, anyone can do an experiment about gravity. In fact millions of high school kids do every year. What makes an expert scientist is the ability to understand all the many ways such experiments can fail to accurately measure the underlying…

You and I know this. The people making hiring decisions do not. Managers and CEOs are too enamored by the thought of reduced labor costs to see reason. Facts don't matter, only what the person making the hiring decision believes to be true, or has been fed. College grads are angry because their job prospects are bad due to AI hysteria. It has nothing to do with how good AI is, the hysteria is what is causing problems…

I agree with this (and the earlier comment about perceived expertise vs actual expertise), and I think it goes beyond hiring managers.

The core demoralizing fact is that when people perceive that AI can give results at least as good as human experts, they choose AI, because it is faster and/or cheaper.

Re: Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

#137

Post by thunky »

vitally3643 wrote: post #118
snowwrestler wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, expertise is more important when working with AI, because it can make mistakes. Expertise is the ability to predict, understand, and mitigate such mistakes. In science for example, anyone can do an experiment about gravity. In fact millions of high school kids do every year. What makes an expert scientist is the ability to understand all the many ways such experiments can fail to accurately measure the underlying…

You and I know this. The people making hiring decisions do not. Managers and CEOs are too enamored by the thought of reduced labor costs to see reason. Facts don't matter, only what the person making the hiring decision believes to be true, or has been fed. College grads are angry because their job prospects are bad due to AI hysteria. It has nothing to do with how good AI is, the hysteria is what is causing problems…

> College grads are angry because their job prospects are bad due to AI hysteria. It has nothing to do with how good AI is

I doubt it. If there was nothing behind the hysteria then there would be nothing to be afraid of.

If I was entry level I would be genuinely worried, because hysteria or not, I now have to compete with AI and prove I'm worth hiring. Not an easy thing to do.

So I don't think the anger is about not being able to find a job in the field today, it's about not being able to find one ever.

Re: Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

#138

Post by wrxd »

snowwrestler wrote: post #114
d4rkp4ttern wrote: post #98

I can see where it's coming from. Putting it starkly, at a high level, the broad effect of AI is this: devaluation of expertise, whether in coding, or drawing, or music composition, or writing, or translation, or so many other areas. College students working hard to gain expertise in specific areas are faced with the prospect that this very expertise is being "democratized" by AI, putting it in the hands of literally…

No, expertise is more important when working with AI, because it can make mistakes. Expertise is the ability to predict, understand, and mitigate such mistakes. In science for example, anyone can do an experiment about gravity. In fact millions of high school kids do every year. What makes an expert scientist is the ability to understand all the many ways such experiments can fail to accurately measure the underlying…

Expertise is more important if you care about a good end result. People pushing for AI often don't care about the end result at all. They care about quantity over quality.

This can be really frustrating for someone who spent time getting experienced. They get hit twice. First they don't get a chance to do a job because "AI replaced you, sorry". Then they look at the result and what they see is low quality slop.

Re: Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

#139

Post by deanmoriarty »

Sol- wrote: post #60

200 years ago people would have booed the industrial revolution. They shouldn't boo the amazing technology, but instead cheer for this liberation from toil and find ways to equitably distribute its benefits.

Once liberated from toil, how are these kids going to pay for rent?

Re: Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

#140

Post by danaris »

_heimdall wrote: post #25
jbs789 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silicon Valley has really screwed up here. They are so obsessed with their own importance (this kit is so powerful it can destroy the world!) they have failed to sell/inform the average joe. It’s a tool. And the next generation probably benefits from learning how to use it effectively. The hype has gotten in the way of reality.

A good start would have been them not calling this artificial intelligence at all. The hype is largely based on the term "AI" and if it really is simply a (very impressive) auto complete tool it isn't intelligence at all, though as you said can be a very useful tool.

But that's their whole pitch: Altman is, last I heard, still insisting that they're going to have an AGI—in the sense of a "strong AI", capable of ushering in the supposed Singularity—by the end of the decade.

To be clear, I completely agree that we'd be better off as a society if they referred to all the LLMs as LLMs, and not as AI, but that's completely antithetical to their intentions and beliefs.

Post reply on HN