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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

#91

Post by throwaway173738 »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #67
cj wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Schmidt then drew a parallel between artificial intelligence and the transformative impact of the computer — and was immediately met with boos. That's a shame. I assume the reason for the "deep distain" is rooted in fear of change, fear that LLM will make it harder to have a successful career. That's a pretty negative mindset to have as a college grad just entering the workforce. I'm not an AI fan boy, but we can't…

> I'm not an AI fan boy, but we can't cover our eyes and cover our ears and pretend the world isn't changing. You imply that the change is inevitable. AI isn't inevitable. It requires governments to allow the construction of datacentres and for companies to be able to spend vast amounts of money they don't have for the hope of future return, which will inevitably result in a too-big-to-fail cascade which gets money d…

What’s truly astonishing is that all of that money could be spent on bettering real people’s lives, but instead it gets spent on hubris.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#92

Post by [deleted] »

itsalwaysgood wrote: post #23
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.

Probably too early for this, but I'm reminded of the Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil. Evil acts made real by the decisions of those at the top, and the rest of us reject the acts. But quitely we accept these acts by being satisfied with verbal protest. In other words, we always do whatever is easiest, and rarely are willing to sacrifice our way of life to make real change. One person can never make a differenc…

[deleted]

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#93

Post by moichael »

imadhiskenderbe wrote: post #34
lazide wrote: 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.

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Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#94

Post by throwaway613746 »

rdtsc wrote: 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…

[dead]

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#95

Post by new_account_100 »

kubb wrote: post #77
329a8Hqag wrote: post #71

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.

[flagged]

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#96

Post by intended »

WilcoKruijer wrote: post #7
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.

I find this a weird comment. Isn't this the same kind of out of touch? I could write: > Kind of goes to show how out of touch and insular the Hackernews commenter sphere can be. Almost everyone I interact with in reality loves LLMs and their touted trajectory. And it would hold mostly true for me. This goes to show we should all be aware of our respective bubbles.

Sure - and people can engage with you on that.

For example, is that true of your experience?

In general HN has been enamored by AI, with the sheen falling off only in the past quarter. This has matched with most people on HN being far more tech aware than the average user.

The issues with GenAI have also been couched to match observed reality.

——-

The point being, - You can have your experience, and you can talk about it to build a better understanding of reality.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#97

Post by panny »

nilirl wrote: 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.

[flagged]

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#98

Post by daveguy »

gcr wrote: post #33
bko wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In reality they like LLMs because they're the highest user of them. Pew reported 64% of U.S. teens used AI chatbots, while a Harvard study found 51% of ages 14–22 had used generative AI at some point. What you answer on a survey is meaningless. Look at their actions. And no they're not being pressured to use LLMs, standards or expectations have not gone up dramatically. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowle…

Your last sentence is factually not true. Friends across five different companies report that LLM adoption is now a key metric in their performance review.

Yeah, "not being pressured to use them" conveniently sidesteps the fact they are RLHF trained to be as engaging (aka addictive) as possible.

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#99

Post by sega_sai »

I believe that AI is truly revolutionary, but I struggle to feel sympathy to these large companies who (while building tremendously powerful tools) also work on extracting as much money they can from users, potentially making millions of them redundant while paying as little as possible for used texts, codes. In some sense this is how capitalism is supposed to work. But I am not required to like the bosses who pontificate about the future opportunities.

(A somewhat contrasting behaviour is say l deepseek who releases their models to the public, and I would not boo them)

Re: Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation

#100

Post by [deleted] »

rdtsc wrote: 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…

[deleted]
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