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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

#151

Post by slg »

ch4s3 wrote: post #137
slg wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>political violence rarely achieves its aims This country was founded on political violence. When the political violence works, we tend to stop considering it political violence.

I did say rarely, and if you are looking more carefully a pluralistic democracy wasn't really what a lot of the founders were after, especially guys like Jefferson. Sure we're happy we got it, but it wasn't necessarily the aim and we got SUPER LUCKY that Washington decided to step down and retire. The former military leaders of revolutions almost never do that.

> I did say rarely

And I think you have that backwards. The nonviolence movements of the mid to late 20th century are the exception more than the rule when it comes to achieving change.

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

#152

Post by Joel_Mckay »

delecti wrote: post #149
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check your schools alumni jobs board postings, and have a look at local telecom offerings. Few will want to spend $50k in resources to train knowing you will jump to a better job in 1 year. These people have been around a long time, and may be able to get you started: https://www.aerotek.com/ Would also recommend talking with companies you find interesting at local trade-shows. Don't get lazy with the online gauntlet…

You may have misread my comment a bit. I've actually got a dozen+ years experience, mostly recently at the staff level. I am currently looking and having trouble finding positions, but probably not because they're worried I'll jump ship in a year (5+ and 7+ years tenure in my two jobs). Also sorry for the downvote, it wasn't me.

Indeed, YC has a few griefers that engage in bad faith. Yet most people here are pretty interesting and fun to chat with.

Note some "AI" firms have been data mining CVs for at least 3 years. What this means, is there will be a lot of bogus/expired listings for positions that simply don't exist.

I would recommend focusing on local firms, and attending events that require physical presence. Online postings tend to have too many desperate applicants that bid down compensation packages.

Best of luck, =3

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

#153

Post by 8note »

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…

conversation around nationalization i think is useful.

the people building AGI benefit so much in the long run from its creation, they would be willing to build it with no ownership or control over the result, and continue to pour billions un with no return.

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

#154

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

leptons wrote: post #97
ch4s3 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mangione was a one-off, and a lot of people understand why he may have done what he did. Just wait until the American version of the French Revolution happens. If AI keeps stealing all the jobs, it will come sooner rather than later.

> "...French Revolution..."

Well, let's see:

- Most of the nobility escaped the French Revolution unharmed. By the way, wealth is a lot portable for today's magnates than it was for the French nobility deriving their income from their land holdings.

- Some of those who went to the block were nobles but most were ordinary people.

- The leader of the revolution, Robespierre, was himself executed in the infighting after the French Revolution, a very neat own goal. Bonus fact: his time in power was called the Reign Of Terror.

- The First Republic lasted only 10 years before Napoleon Bonaparte took the throne.

In a turbulent time, always seek to be led by those with a proper understanding of revolutions and their context. Generally, those who romanticize the French Revolution don't pass that test.

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

#155

Post by UncleMeat »

GrinningFool wrote: post #72
bryan0 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Schmidt offered a similar message to graduates: Their fear is rational, but they have the power to shape how AI develops. This doesn't sound like being baffled by it. It sounds like they are trying to shake the students and say: "fine boo, but you need do something about it." You can't just wallow and complain about it. I mean you can but it's a path to failure.

What chances do the vast majority of those graduates have to shape what's happening? That happens at exec level at the largest companies. Everyone else gets to produce or consume what they decide on.

Exactly. I work at Google and I’m relatively high level. And I’ve got zero input into AI being shoved into every surface. What influence will these grads have?

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

#156

Post by tacocataco »

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…

> "okay, then what?”

The status quo is what we negotiated, using our labor as our only bargaining chip. Do you expect future negotiations, with zero leverage on our side, to yield better results?

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

#157

Post by ChrisArchitect »

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

#158

Post by xboxnolifes »

ferguess_k wrote: post #148
dakiol wrote: post #44

People are not idiots. AI benefits only the ones at the top of the chain, and the 10% of the rest of us. Are you in the top 10%? No, you typically are in the bottom 90%. So we don't want AI, we don't want the top getting richer at our expenses. We just want a job to bring bread home and keeping pushing our store while being "happy". You take that away from us, just so you can double your net worth, and well, bad thin…

Yeah. So many people drinking the cool-aid dreaming oneself to be the 10%.

A lot of people in tech are probably in the 10%. But, the real problem is that AI doesn't even really help those in the top 10%. Maybe just barely, if you already accumulated your wealth. It's really closer to the top 5% who won't be particularly negatively affected.

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

#159

Post by apothegm »

palmotea wrote: post #10

Those kids are crazy. We're finally close to realizing the dream of making labor obsolete, how could they not be excited and enthusiastic about the future? Most of them will no longer needed, and thankfully those that are still needed can be paid more reasonable wages (i.e. lower ones). It's a win-win for everyone. The lower prices enabled by automation allow them to stretch their savings or inheritance further befor…

I think you may have run afoul of Poe’s Law.

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

#160

Post by glitchc »

glitchc wrote: post #106
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…

*by hand I mean hand-written on a piece of paper.
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