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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

#401

Post by ChoGGi »

wvbdmp wrote: post #103
davemp wrote: post #3

Kind of goes to show how out of touch and insular the tech exec sphere can be. Almost everyone I interact with in reality has a deep distain for LLMs and their touted trajectory.

Idk what people you interact with, but my personal sample of “normal people” post AI generated pics and videos in their WhatsApp status and adorn their homes with AI generated imagery for christmas. They may not actively use LLMs or even know what they are, but they’re satisfied with Google’s AI overview and they love using voice assistants. These aren’t people from any particular sphere I sought out or which self-se…

I use Google's old voice assistant, not Gemini.

It's a lot less annoying to deal with and more consistent. Is it AI (LLM)?

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#402

Post by customguy »

emkoemko wrote: post #397
mountainb wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can prompt up some really cool commercial-grade art within the limitations of the models. Getting more precision and consistency in the images requires additional technical configuration and actual artistic skill such that it more resembles using Photoshop and similar software. But what can be done with prompting is a lot more impressive than what can be done with rudimentary Photoshop skills and a big photo libr…

yea but the whole point is that it is not art... never will be

And even if it was, it would be art stolen from the poor to profit the wealthy. The worst "art" there could possibly be. And then it's so tacky and mediocre on top of that.

Either way, I can't draw a line between art and non-art, but I can draw one between humans I respect and humans I don't.

We basically have the situation that some people thought they were super clever by finding out that you can steal from a blind beggar, enhancing their productivity, getting those results. Sure you can do that, they're blind after all, just yoink it; but you cannot undo it, and we all saw. A person who would do such a thing will never understand why people who would not do such a thing are appalled at them. And they think they don't have to care because they now have "AI" and can just brute force or work around consent. I don't know how exactly this will fall on their feet but what goes up will come down.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#403

Post by DonsDiscountGas »

0x000xca0xfe wrote: post #292
DonsDiscountGas wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wholesale vs retail. I think the highest value, biggest markets will have products straight from the AI labs (ie legal review) but there's a lot of "last mile" type stuff that it's probably not as economical for anthropic to care about but maybe for some other company.

Why wouldn't it be economical? Following the logic their agents should be able to find and make money with niche businesses cheaper than human entrepreneurs.

The relevant comparison isn't "human entrepreneurs", it's whatever else those agents could be doing instead

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#404

Post by nomel »

Sol- wrote: post #305
the_af wrote: 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…

All nerds/top performers I know are that way because their dopamine pathways fire when they learn and/or perceive self progression. That's it. It's the same for artists and musicians. All these types will do what they do regardless. They can't help it.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#405

Post by uejfiweun »

I feel the backlash really comes down to the fact that AI is a fucking pain in the ass when it comes to planning your life. Nobody asked for it, nobody wanted it, but regardless we're all now thrust into a technological revolution where you have to bust your ass upskilling or else be fired. Most people are inherently lazy and "work to live" as opposed to the other way around. It's no wonder they'd be less than enthused about a technology that basically promises to enrich their bosses thanks to they themselves being more productive.

Moreover, the executives have done an absolutely horrible job of communicating the benefits. It's all "your job is going to be replaced in the next few years". I've had plenty of amazing conversations with Claude about the imminent AI-enabled revolutions in materials science, biotech, etc - and yet for some reason this is the exact opposite of the PR line they're taking.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#406

Post by uejfiweun »

Sol- wrote: post #234
mbgerring wrote: post #114

Can someone in this thread who says “the kids must be wrong” give an actual optimistic case for AI? Because as far as I understand it, the “optimist” case for AI is that LLMs become God and wipe out human life as we know it entirely, and replace it with a transcendent post-human intelligence. And in the meantime, we’ll have a permanent underclass that will be kept alive on some kind of subsistence UBI. That seems to…

> that will be kept alive on some kind of subsistence UBI Setting aside whether a permanent underclass will be an outcome or not - is it not a bit incompatible to simultaneously believe that all jobs will be gone and that a subsistence UBI is necessarily very bad? The way I see it, if strong AGI really replaces all jobs, then even a subsistence level UBI (by the new post-AGI standards) will be a world with ubiquitous…

In my view, UBI basically puts me, an upstanding citizen with hard skills that AI made obsolete, on the same playing field as the average junkie off the street in SF. Why on earth would I want that? People are different, the modern economy is a great stratification mechanism at putting you near people of similar conscientiousness, and getting rid of that is a recipe for misery.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#407

Post by the_af »

nomel wrote: post #404
Sol- wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

All nerds/top performers I know are that way because their dopamine pathways fire when they learn and/or perceive self progression. That's it. It's the same for artists and musicians. All these types will do what they do regardless. They can't help it .

Hm, anyone who's a nerd, artist or performer will tell you that's only partly true. There's intrinsic motivation, sure, but artists and performers also have an idealized audience in mind; someone to share with. It could be a spouse or family, it can be friends, but there's almost always someone. There is for me, for my performer friends and family, there's for musicians I know.

Motivation is a fickle mistress. It can definitely be killed if you feel what you're doing is pointless.

Even more, motivation often arises from struggle. If you remove all struggle, if everything worth doing is done by AI/machines, and everything exciting is happening someplace else inaccessible to you, that will be catastrophic.

I'm also reminded of Philip Dick's "Autofac".

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#408

Post by uejfiweun »

nomel wrote: post #404
Sol- wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

All nerds/top performers I know are that way because their dopamine pathways fire when they learn and/or perceive self progression. That's it. It's the same for artists and musicians. All these types will do what they do regardless. They can't help it .

I don't know about this one. For me, at least, the reward of "self progression" is intimately tied to external systems. I would not care about getting better at programming if there wasn't a social and financial reward attached.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#410

Post by uejfiweun »

jiaosdjf wrote: post #321
mbgerring wrote: post #114

Can someone in this thread who says “the kids must be wrong” give an actual optimistic case for AI? Because as far as I understand it, the “optimist” case for AI is that LLMs become God and wipe out human life as we know it entirely, and replace it with a transcendent post-human intelligence. And in the meantime, we’ll have a permanent underclass that will be kept alive on some kind of subsistence UBI. That seems to…

I'm more "the kids are showing healthy skepticism of corporate dystopia but AI is vital" camp, here is my argument: 1. Yes the risk of AI corporate/authoritarian dystopia is HUGE, we'll have to fight for our rights MANY times this century. Transcendental AI takeover is probably less of a risk than humans in power using armies of robots and Stasi-AI surveillance. 2. Our current economy is bs and the last century of 'r…

I feel like the main issue here is that it does seem like in the current trajectory the job loss outcome is going to happen before any of these potential really good outcomes. I'm down for a utopian future, but I don't have to want to spend 10 to 20 years in a depressing unemployed hellscape before I get there.
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