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Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

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

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

OpenAI's definition for AGI is entire bullshit though. They define it as an AI that can economically outcompete most humans at most tasks. They also claim to be concerned with safety. Economics is a study of the past, we won't know what an AI can do economically until it is already released and allowed to directly compete with human labor. There's no safety in such an approach. This is a bit ranty and not directed at…

Indeed—and this is, itself, another part of the problem, because (again, last I heard) Altman himself was very clearly pitching the "AGI" they were going to create as something that was going to revolutionize the world practically overnight—create effectively infinite value. In other words, it would usher in the Singularity.

But an LLM that's able to "economically outcompete most humans at most tasks" (which, IMO, is likely still beyond their potential capability) is not that, and will never be that. They're just trying to have their cake and eat it too by moving the goalposts to 5 yards from the start point and claiming that they're still at the other end of the field. (Not to torturously mix my metaphors or anything.)

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

#182
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been against dismissive responses like "ok boomer", but you are really pushing it. First of all you should say when your days were. Secondly I'm italian so whenever they were, that means absolutely nothing to me. Third, all of this is completely OT.

"Secondly I'm italian so whenever they were, that means absolutely nothing to me." Oh yes, silly us, we forgot this entire discussion was about you.

Thanks for addressing none of my questions and thus proving that you are just a sour old person.

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

#183

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 don’t understand how this, in the context of people like Eric Schmidt lecturing people about AI, is putting it in stark terms. Starkly is to contrast these millionaire’s/billionaire’s ambitions to put them out of a job, permanently. But as usual the Silicon Valley tech disruption is put in terms of “democratizicing” X (scare quotes or not), just like taxi side hustling has been democraticized I guess.

People aren’t afraid of being out of a job, they say. It’s the usual jealously guarded guild expertise, by people who haven’t even entered any professions yet.

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

#184

my best friend is a high school english teacher. he said the worst part is kids keep hearing 'it's inevitable,' the complete integration of AI into every facet of life and thinking is gonna happen no matter what anyone says or does. this is the most manipulative and untrue thing anyone could say to a kid scared of a certain kind of future. its it's own kind of misinformation to tell people that something that will ta…

How is this different from saying the internet is inevitable? Paul Krugman famously disagreed, but that didn't make him right.

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

#185
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…

I find my hatred of AI to be incredibly rational, and the cultlike veneration of the “insane productivity boost” it gives you to be truly irrational (whether or not that boost actually exists). Productivity as the be-all-and-end-all of personal aspiration exemplifies what is rotten in our industry and society at large: more for the sake of more, faster for the sake of better, no matter the consequences and with certa…

It’s always funny to me to see people in tech, who have largely been employed to put other people out of work for the last 50 years, change their stance on tech as soon as it starts to affect them.
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