College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos

Eric Schmidt’s speech was particularly bad regardless of the subject, his condescending tone alone deserved the booing.

"After my speech for the troops about how we are losing in Iran, my speech to children with cancer about how we've gutted research, sure I can then give a speech to people entering the job market about how AI is ruining the job market"

Perfect, that's exactly the message of despair we want to send! (How I imagine picking these speakers goes at every college campus)

> Tennessee State University suggested AI was "rewriting production as we sit here" and told his audience to "deal with it" as they jeered him in response.

Guess it doesn't take much to see what's under the mask.

Discussed here (2 days ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48177785

The kids are alright.

Correctly or not (probably to some degree correctly) new grads are hearing AI is a major reason why they're having trouble finding jobs which is simultaneously 1.) Probably mostly has always been the case--I no longer have the vast sheaf of rejection letters when I ever got one at all and 2.) Is anecdotally actually the case for a variety of reasons that also include pandemic overhiring and probably an out-sized AI effect on junior engineers, probably especially programmers.

Imagine bringing a new technology into the world, telling everyone it’s gonna take everything from them including possibly their literal lives, and then telling a bunch of kids to get on board or they’re gonna miss the billionaire rocket ship! lol these people are so out of touch.

Yeah, it is incredibly tone deaf.

I can fully understand some executives trying to hype up AI with the "It'll create more jobs!" mantra, but as it happens, the AI boom coincided with the post-COVID layoffs (from the hiring frenzy we saw back then) - so even though AI might directly not be responsible for less junior/grad hiring in the various industries, the vibe is that it is still responsible for the tough times college grads are facing.

> “There is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating, that the climate is breaking, that politics are fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create.”

The total lack of self-awareness that Schmidt and his cohort of tech billionaires has significantly contributed to all this is screaming even louder than the boos.

I’d be anxious, too, if I were just starting my career. Those kids just invested a lot of time and money in an education, and the payoff looks a lot like a gamble.

But AI is going to help, not hurt in the long run. Technology always makes things better and cheaper in the long run. Poverty diminishes, free time increases, things truly do get better over time. This’ll be a short term bump, but it’ll be a steep one.

They just have not considered the massive shareholder value being captured, which under capitalism is certainly guaranteed to trickle down, as it had been historically proven time after time.

AI Bros are spending too much good will being obnoxious about fancy approximation algorithms, when their purpose in real AI will be lizard brain/reflex type actions.

The next AI winter can't happen soon enough. (Note each past AI winter did give us new tools just like this one will, it's just a shame that it'll be an excuse to worsen customer support)

[flagged]

> Schmidt, who served in various capacities as CEO, Chairman, and technical advisor to Google and its parent company Alphabet across several decades, ...

It is gratuitous to say “several,” no?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt