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Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

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Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#311
post #305
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> post-scarcity wealth where people pretty much spend their time how they want In a true post-scarcity society where Musk et al are off colonizing Mars while you're stuck on Earth on UBI, doing what exactly? In such a future, AI has automated boring chores but also everything else. Art, movies, cooking, everything you might find enjoyable. So lots of free time to do what ? Work on yourself? Nobody will care. Engage w…

> Work on yourself? Nobody will care. Engage with your hobbies? Nobody will care to see them But this is already the case now, no? The only person you do self-improvement or hobbies for is yourself or your closest social circle. We are already worse at everything than the professionals in the respective fields and also do not despair about it. > To me this seems like a hellish future, a mix of "Farenheit 451" with pe…

> But this is already the case now, no? The only person you do self-improvement or hobbies for is yourself or your closest social circle.

Well, you could be a professional in the field instead of a hobbyist. But not anymore (in this scenario). And even your closest social circle won't care about your hobbies, when they can easily produce the same. Even hobbyists have a (small) audience -- unless they are completely self-absorbed, which I know some people are, but let's leave them aside for a second -- and that'll be gone.

> We are already worse at everything than the professionals in the respective fields and also do not despair about it.

Yes, I'm saying in this dystopian future the professionals will be gone too. And then you won't be able to aspire to becoming a professional either, nothing left for you to look forward or aspire to. So what will we do with all our free time? Learn to cook? Nobody will be impressed, the Cook-bot in every kitchen will do it way better than you.

> But yes, of course ultimately it all boils down to us being obsolete

This depresses me a lot.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#312

The biggest issue I see with discourse around AI is you have two voices: one is of the tech CEO's and other elites that talk about it largely in the abstract and how it's going to take everyone's jobs, and then you have folks on Twitter/X that talk about things that they are actually using it for. Generally what I found listening to both sides is the latter group is very optimistic about AI and what it can do while t…

I just don't think that "I use AI to help plan a vacation or make a funny picture to share with my friends or create a study plan" outweighs the very obvious challenges that AI is creating for new graduates as they enter the job market. I'm sure even that a lot of these students used AI to cheat.

But the stuff from the rich bosses isn't just rhetoric. These students are graduating into an extremely messy job market and AI is directly to blame. That affects students in a huge way.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I think it's telling that AI leaders need to rely on fallacious reasoning and trickery to promote their product. A good product should sell itself. I feel that AI leaders have been shoving their product down our throats for the last two years (at least).

It's important to realize that those people are sociopaths. They delight in the suffering of the common man through their complete lack of empathy. Also, just because they are very good at climbing the corporate ladder (which is a skill on its own), it doesn't necessarily translate to them being particularly smart on fields beyond their expertise.

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Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#314
The people behind pushing 'everyone needs to learn to code' are now the same pushing 'everyone must use AI'. The same Eric Schmidt that was pedaling 'I assume that everybody here agrees that globalization is wonderful' to a Davos crowd.

The guy has always looked for way to keep humans as chattel.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#315

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 don't think you are a hippy. From evolutionary perspective alone, it seems reasonable. However, US society in particular has been.. complicated for the past few generations. I used to attribute it to the individualism ethos and whatnot, but I no longer think that is a reasonable take in a sense that it is not the whole story. There is a steady flow of push to separate individuals from one another. For example, it i…

> There is a steady flow of push to separate individuals from one another. For example, it is not unusual for parent to offer a sentiment along the lines of 'you are out at 18'.

If anything, I think this sentiment has decreased over the years. Partially as a result of economic challenges for young people and partially as a result of immigration from cultures where living with your parents as an adult is normal.

But I do agree with your wider point about individuals being separated from one another. I think it has to do mostly with technological changes and an economy which causes people to uproot their lives and move across the country for work.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m know it’s better in some other countries, but in the U.S., we can’t even agree that all people with jobs should have health insurance.

That’s even a bit optimistic. We can’t agree that all people with full time jobs should be able to afford the basics for their own survival.

hey now, they should be grateful they get enough tokens for their appointments with ClaudeMD for their statistically below par data labeling performance, we could reduce the allowance if we keep hearing that kind of talk. We have been very generous with portions at the automatic canteen as well, that energy could be better allocated to the maintenance bots in the server farm.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#317
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means nothing, as you imply. He is improvising and deflects with a point that he thinks will land with his audience and detract from the issue.

Utterances that come out of executive’s mouths don’t have truth values. They’re sounds meant to irritate people’s nervous systems to achieve the exec’s goals.

Relevant Kendall Roy quote: "Words are just uh, what? Nothing. Complicated airflow."

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#318
post #314

The people behind pushing 'everyone needs to learn to code' are now the same pushing 'everyone must use AI'. The same Eric Schmidt that was pedaling 'I assume that everybody here agrees that globalization is wonderful' to a Davos crowd. The guy has always looked for way to keep humans as chattel.

*peddling

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#319
post #191
post #8

> Schmidt urged graduates to embrace freedom, open debate, equality and the willingness to engage with those they disagree with. I think it was a great embrace of freedom and open debate to boo him for only asserting predictions that benefit him.

Shouting people down isn’t “open debate”.

Shouting people with power down is the closest to an open debate you will get with them.

No one with power like Schmidt will join in an open debate with you and me (well, unless you are one of the 9-figure millionaires that might be around HN), they circulate around others with similar power, they don't engage with the powerless, they have no need for it. They are not having a debate with us about rolling out AI, they just wield their power and do it unto us.

Getting some backlash is the bare minimum, if our democratic systems worked we could use democratic processes to curtail their power, unfortunately those systems are also tilted very heavily towards the ones with outsized power already. If you leave people without a voice, shouting the powerful ones down is the least you should expect.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#320
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a good comment from a new account. Please post here more often :)

It's clearly coming from a claw agent. I'm sure they will post more :)

If true...

On the one hand: they fooled me.

On the other hand: hey, if the comments are that good, keep going?

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