Live data from Hacker News

Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

nbcnews.com

251–260 of 445 posts

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#251
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what hope exactly?

From what I read, he stated that even the coming of computers in the first place threatened many jobs, also many fresh graduates felt probably the same way back then, but everything worked out in the end.

Everything worked out in the end for Eric Schmidt because he rode computers to billionaire status.

It did not always work out so great for the people who were replaced, and the people who were replaced were a much smaller percentage of the workforce than the tech CEOs are claiming will be replaced by AI.

People largely go to college to train for the white collar jobs that tech CEOs are claiming are going to be entirely replaced by LLMs, where's the hope for the people that just spent six figures learning how to do jobs that people like Schmidt are trying their hardest to eliminate?

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#252
post #69
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can like talking to gemini, but dislike claude taking their programming job.

Then start using DeepSeek. Don't use distilled little RTX models on your frankensteined home PC like a 0.00001%er who misses the ergonomics Claude Code solves. That's a "Year of Linux on Desktop 2010" grade failure waiting to happen. Rent cloud instances and spin up thick model weights and contribute to the open source infrastructure for making this easy for everyone to use. The hyperscalers should be eaten by cheap,…

Which GPU cloud instance are you using?

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#253
post #55

> “If you’d let me make this point, please —” Schmidt said amid boos. “The point I’d like to make is choose a diversity of perspectives, including the perspective of the immigrant who has so often been the person who came to this country and made it better. America is at its best when we are the country that ambitious people want to come to. Let us not lose that.” How does that tie in? You have to like AI because of…

> What’s the logic here Tenuous connection between unrelated topics to fit them into larger ingroup/outgroup dynamics is the junkfood of persuasion tactics. Bad for you but addictive anyway. If you look for it you'll see it all the time.

"If you don't like AI, you're a nazi."

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#254
post #35

Tons of CEOs right now keep saying “young people need to learn how to use AI to be successful” and also “we aren’t planning to hire any new college grads due to AI”.. so which one is it.. seems everybody understands the super pro AI CEOs want to lay off nearly the entire company and run it on skeleton crew with a ton of AI and get ultra rich. While “some other” companies should totally hire lots of young people but n…

> so which one is it..

Both? The messaging from the last 30+ years has already been that the only way to be successful is to develop your own capital, not to get a job. He's saying that learning how to use AI will be essential in developing the next generation capital.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You asked for an optimistic case and he gave you one. One thing I really like about LLMs is that they don't engage in this type of petty deceit where they ask a question and then insult you for answering.

This is not an “optimistic case.” This is faith-based airhead nonsense. I want to understand: - If the people working on AI actually believe they’re building a God - If so, why do they believe that - If not, is there some optimistic case for LLMs based on something I don’t understand What I got was “yes we are building a God, and despite all available evidence, it will be great! I promise!” This is the language and b…

100% agree. There's no substance to the argument, just the same cultish rhetoric from the aristocracy trying to fleece us into thinking that, while they simultaneously push mass layoffs and aim to drive down the price of labor, they are actually doing this to benefit us in the long run. "Just wait," they say. Once the AI future comes to fruition, you will eat "peaches and cream" and "bask in the sun all day." "You will dance in this utopian paradise." How could anyone possibly take this seriously, and are we expected not to see, plainly, the self-interested agenda being dressed up in the language of collective uplift?

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imo there's a priority you should have for the generation below you. Just like how you clean up for your next week's self, you clean up for the next generation. Make sure you don't leave the world on fire before you dip. Two generations have failed at this, now's your chance to break the streak. But maybe I'm just a hippie, who knows.

I see AI exactly as what will help future generations, the possibilities it provides in terms of learning, research, analysis are huge. It confusing to me how people complain about jobs - there is no guarantee that any job will be there forever, there is no guarantee that current social and economic model will be there forever, things always change, you have to adapt, there is no other way.

Present generations see the primary role for AI as being identical to the biggest disruption to US business in the past century — namely the gigantic sucking sound from the outsourcing of millions of US jobs in order to reduce labor costs. Of course they're terrified of it. By singing its praises AND IGNORING THAT CONCERN, Schmidt showed that he couldn't be more out of touch with the top priority of this generation — WILL AI TAKE MY JOB?

It's like Steve Forbes cluelessly joking that rise of Private Equity will make it easier for the unemployed to buy another racehorse. WTF?

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#258
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a major reason behind the backlash against AI. In the past, people celebrated tech billionaires because there was a widespread belief that, someday, they might join their ranks. But wealth inequality may have now reached a point where that illusion no longer works.

I think it’s that the current crop of tech billionaires are tone deaf douche bags working against the common good.

You do not amass those levels of wealth without being a tone deaf douche bag in the first place.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#259
post #15

[flagged]

what hope exactly?

Those magic new jobs, that are possible only due to LLM existence, should start hiring any day now.

Jokes aside, for a second there might appear a niche for "authentic human work", but that would be dead on arrival, at least considering fate of Etsy - flooded by "handmade" goods few years ago.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#260
post #209

[flagged]

Where? Those AI utopias they proclaim don’t fit with capitalism.

This is the most confusing thing to me. If AI works, capitalism is dead and kept on life support via UBI or dead and replaced by communism.

So why billionaires are pushing it, when it will erase them from existence if it is working.

And no, private army or some bunker on Hawaii is not going to save them

Post reply on HN