Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

https://apnews.com/article/ai-college-commencement-anxiety-boo-35aec9bac660eaeb05c5b8d392db2cac

by 1vuio0pswjnm7 • 2 months ago

122 179 2 months ago

College students are cooked for entry level work.

I'm guessing there will soon be a government mandate requiring some percentage of NCGs to be hired, similar to India and other countries with huge cohorts.

delecti2• 2 months ago

Yep. I was looking for jobs the other day (because the market as a whole is kinda cooked), and one fairly small company had a half-dozen openings for Staff level engineers, and nothing else. If I'm having this much trouble with staff level experience, I can't imagine how new grads are doing.

sheikhnbake• 2 months ago

Not great. There's so much competition for so few entry-level positions.

Joel_Mckay4• 2 months ago

Check your schools alumni jobs board postings, and have a look at local telecom offerings. Few will want to spend $50k in resources to train knowing you will jump to a better job in 1 year.

These people have been around a long time, and may be able to get you started:

https://www.aerotek.com/

Would also recommend talking with companies you find interesting at local trade-shows. Don't get lazy with the online gauntlet of Ads for awful jobs, scams, and AI datasets.

Best of luck, =3

mkw50532• 2 months ago

I believe Anthropic has stopped hiring junior and mid eng. So if they're an indication of what's the come (or is already here)

Joel_Mckay4• 2 months ago

They are a business, and not an outreach program.

Note NVIDIA is engaged in questionable operations that must end... sooner or later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUbJDrL6ZfM

Unfortunately, the economic fallout will impact kids hardest. =3

ethanplant• 2 months ago

I’m genuinely confused as to why the speakers are baffled by the boos.

Everyone, and especially new grads constantly hear that AI is going to replace every job. And absolutely no one seems to be interested in answering the question of “okay, then what?”

Of course people are going to react negatively when they hear, “the machines are going to take your jobs from you. No, we don’t care how you’ll be able to pay your rent or put food on the table”.

dfxm122• 2 months ago

The executive class is out of touch with normal society.

nephihaha• 2 months ago

They're baffled maybe because they stand to benefit, whereas most of the audience won't.

mbgerring3• 2 months ago

The people who are faced with this question are so far removed from the idea that losing your job means not being able to eat or pay rent that it seems pointless to ask them.

Whenever I try to get serious answers to this question I get far-future projections about how much better people’s lives will be in the aggregate, at some point in the future, on the assumption that their baseless, faith-based projections about AI materialize.

They literally do not care if their own neighbors starve, or become homeless, or lose any ability to plan their own lives more than a few days in advance.

This is the predictable result of the deep inculcation of spreadsheet-based “utilitarianism,” frequently paired with heavy drug use and paranoia-inducing science fiction horror stories, that certain communities of Bay Area tech workers were exposed to (inducted into, groomed into, whatever word you want to use) in the last decade or so.

This toxic soup taught many people that individual lives literally do not matter when weighed against the importance of creating AGI. This set of beliefs already has a body count, and it will grow before this train crashes.

vitally36432• 2 months ago

The "I got mine, fuck you" mindset is genuinely going to be the death of the USA. It's genuinely astonishing how many people are willing to burn everything including their own house to spite random strangers.

hsuduebc2• 2 months ago

I'm becoming more and more convinced that this will eventually be leading to violence. This kind of selfishness has historically fueled movements like Marxism across many countries. It feels like the Industrial Revolution repeating itself, except now the pressure extends across far more of the so called society classes as well.

I do not wish for it but humans have ugly trait to prevent fires only when it is burning all around them.

jandrese4• 2 months ago

Elon Musk is a great example of what happens when you lose grasp on reality. He's been spouting post-scarcity nonsense for some time now like humanity is anywhere close to achieving it. And worst of all, his grand plan is to build expensive sentient humanoid robot slaves to achieve it. The timeline to achieve it is really short, like 20 years.

It's like the ultimate end-game of capitalism. Once Elon has every single last dollar he has "won" and humanity can transition to a post-market economy. This is why you never let game theory guys anywhere near positions of actual power.

8note• 2 months ago

conversation around nationalization i think is useful.

the people building AGI benefit so much in the long run from its creation, they would be willing to build it with no ownership or control over the result, and continue to pour billions un with no return.

mkw50532• 2 months ago

Especially after the first 1-2 got booed, you'd think those that had them scheduled later would have done another pass on their draft...

Or better yet, reflected on their world view and the reception.

Mordisquitos2• 2 months ago

I’m genuinely confused as to why the speakers are baffled by the boos.

Absolutely, I just made a similar comment before I saw yours. In fact, I would argue that the headline is also arguably burying the lede on commencement speakers believing that their AI pep talk speeches will be well-received by students. The newsworthy item is 'Man Bites Dog', not 'Vet Treats Bitten Dog'.

water-data-dude• 2 months ago

Why aren't grads more pumped about an exciting career as an organ donor?

saltcured• 2 months ago

My donation broker says getting pumped may decrease the street value of my organs

bryan0• 2 months ago

Schmidt offered a similar message to graduates: Their fear is rational, but they have the power to shape how AI develops.

This doesn't sound like being baffled by it. It sounds like they are trying to shake the students and say: "fine boo, but you need do something about it." You can't just wallow and complain about it. I mean you can but it's a path to failure.

weard_beard• 2 months ago

CEOs: “Do something about it.”

Luigi Mangione: …

CEOs: “Not like that…

I’m not suggesting that it’s a good response. I’m suggesting that this interpretation of what CEOs are saying is wrong.

GrinningFool• 2 months ago

What chances do the vast majority of those graduates have to shape what's happening? That happens at exec level at the largest companies. Everyone else gets to produce or consume what they decide on.

harimau7773• 2 months ago

The problem is that average people have no power to do anything. The last year has clearly demonstrated that.

jandrese4• 2 months ago

The students are trying to shape the way AI develops, they're unhappy with the results they are getting which is why they are unhappy with you, Mr. CEO man. They want a world where entry level jobs that can transition into good white collar work still exist. Some place where they might be able to afford housing, insurance, kids, and so on. Preferably one where they don't start out life tens of thousands of dollars in the hole just to have a chance at a decent life.

happytoexplain9• 2 months ago

They are trying. But there's not a ton they can do. It's obviously disingenuous to point to all negativity and say "you're just wallowing/complaining". There's no reason to word it this way unless you are broadly annoyed by AI negativity.

krackers• 2 months ago

fine boo, but you need do something about it

Well they are doing something about it, just not the way the speakers had in mind.

bryanlarsen• 2 months ago

And the best mechanism to do something about it they likely have is to influence Schmidt. By booing.

Nothing concrete they do will likely have any effect. But Schmidt can affect it, so influencing Schmidt is their best path. A poor path, but the best one.

soraminazuki• 2 months ago

I mean you're talking about the guy who said with a straight face, "if you have got nothing to hide, you have have nothing to fear" while building the biggest machinery for surveillance capitalism mankind has ever seen. Also appeared in the Epstein files 193 times btw.

https://www.wired.com/story/epstein-files-tech-elites-gates-...

wolvesechoes3• 2 months ago

Shaming those that contribute to AI development is doing something about it. Social pressure is one of the tools.

neksn2• 2 months ago

And absolutely no one seems to be interested in answering the question of “okay, then what?”

I don’t see why the people being booed should be responsible for answering this question. How many such questions did the inventor of the tractor have to answer?

Rantenki• 2 months ago

It would absolutely have been valid to ask that question of the inventor of the tractor too.

It's even more relevant to ask of the CEO/CTO/COO/etc. of the companies that are selling hard on eliminating humans from as many workflows as possible.

harimau7773• 2 months ago

They caused the problems, so they are responsible.

vitally36432• 2 months ago

The tractor displaced horse and oxen.

Which were slaughtered when no longer needed.

You should rethink your metaphor because it's not having the effect you intended.

wat10000• 2 months ago

Imagine if the inventor of the tractor went to a college for farm workers (if there were such a thing) and gave a commencement speech that was all, "Tractors are going to revolutionize farming by making your jobs obsolete." I think it would be fair to expect some answers about how the new graduates should handle that. Or maybe Mr. Tractor should just stay home if he doesn't have the answers or doesn't want to face the crowd.

This isn't "people are upset with AI and demanding answers from the people creating it." This is, "the creators are showing up at schools and giving speeches about how everyone is fucked, and this is getting a bad reaction for some unfathomable reason."

sidewndr462• 2 months ago

One thing I've observed in general that certain peoples jobs are to be out of touch. If they were fully in touch with societal opinions they'd probably self censor. By being out of touch they do things that others would consider taboo and create business opportunities for the company.

littlexsparkee5• 2 months ago

the economic system rewards depravity - the more constraints you self-impose, the fewer opportunities for profit

slg3• 2 months ago

The problem here is more capitalism than AI. If AI ends up being truly as beneficial as all the enthusiasts are predicting, that value could go to making all our lives better, but we have created an economic and political system that ensures it won’t. That extra value will be captured by stockholders of the AI companies and go mostly to people who are already rich. So why should anyone who isn’t already invested in AI be optimistic about things? Even the ideal use case doesn’t benefit them.

seanhunter• 2 months ago

Also why on earth did they think this was a good topic for a commencement speech? A commencement speech is about “congratulations on your achievement - the world is now your oyster. The education you have worked hard for really matters and with a bit of grit and determination, you can go out and forge a better future than old geezers like me can ever imagine.”

Eg This is a frikkin commencement speech https://youtu.be/DCbGM4mqEVw?si=2-83hbB1Um5NAQFC

gofreddygo• 2 months ago

exactly what else do you expect them to do?

They can see peers cheating the system using AI to get ahead, future job prospects, directly affecting time to pay off student loans are being crushed by the AI narrative which is a reminder of how the tuition money is never coming back

and then to have someone come in on commencement day and sing praises of AI just totally shows how tone deaf, blind, and off track the college system really is

related [1] Glendale Community College's screws up names as students walk up to the stage on graduation day. Blamed on AI

[1] https://www.azfamily.com/2026/05/19/ai-system-fails-during-g...

fundad• 2 months ago

It seems to me they are doing this for sympathy. They know how people feel about AI and big tech and do these speeches to repair their reputations, part of that is showing how mean and unfair the youths are to them.

havblue• 2 months ago

When I was in high school, the guidance counselors never really talked about job headwinds. Those were things that would presumably happen to other kids. The recipient of a motivational speech has infinite potential.

It's the same logic with discussing AI. The audience is the cream of the crop and will adapt to the future and benefit from technology. It's those other kids who didn't get your advice that might have to change careers.

littlexsparkee5• 2 months ago

This is the harm of meritocracy - the idea is so pervasive that if you don't make it, you believe it to be a deficit in you. Then your lack of success is stigma and keeps you there.

mancerayder2• 2 months ago

Things felt a lot more optimistic when I was in high school!

I knew people dropping out to work in tech, back in the late 90s. Even after two recessions, we tech workers with hot and difficult to gain skills always bounced back, and back then indeed older skills (as in older or easy to hire tech stacks) had problems finding new roles.

This time feels different. Is it really?

It feels like it to me, but then I spend my entire existence planning for some sort of scarcity situation and every day I think of what if. I did this before any AI threats, unfortunately for me.

soco• 2 months ago

Kid had recently a career event with a few speakers, and the first lady almost made them cry (or kid, at least) telling them all kind of career doom bulls*. The rest were regular folks with regular advice, no toxic positivity either, but that first lady got a fair share of enmity and boos. Some people are simply not made for public facing roles, yet somehow land there.

austin-cheney• 2 months ago

I’m genuinely confused as to why the speakers are baffled by the boos.

Sales. When you are a sociopath everything is a sales pitch with no introspection. The only inflection point is to guess at when to modify the sales pitch for the next audience.

dsign• 2 months ago

And absolutely no one seems to be interested in answering the question of “okay, then what?”

I don't think those speakers have anything kind, useful and meaningful to say, otherwise, smart people that they are, they would say it. Which leaves truthful, heartfelt answers but a bad fit for the occasion. Imagine yourself standing on that podium and saying: "After centuries of hard work, capital is on the verge of getting rid of labor. I'm well-paid to be joyous about that, although I don't know for how much longer....". Here's another: "As you know, one day people will have to stand united and make a revolution against the Machines. But it won't be this decade, nor the next, and between now and then the systems of learning that made humans great are going to suffer terribly while AI will get better by the day. If there's going to be hope, and until that day of the Grim Revolt comes, it falls to you to raise a new generation and do their home-schooling away from the Machines...Go now, throw that diploma in the thrash, get yourself a remote wood cabin in Kentucky and get some kids..."

jandrese4• 2 months ago

It's not hard to see why someone like him might not want to understand the unpopularity of a technology that they have bet their company on. A man can believe almost anything if his paycheck depends on it.

Also, from his perspective these kids are just fools who spent tens of thousands of dollars studying buggy whip manufacturing just as the automobile was invented.

epistasis• 2 months ago

The elite class is completely out of touch these days.

They knew they were unpopular with a certain vocal crowd in Silicon Valley before the 2024 election, and thought they could be redeemed with the public through support of "the people's" choice Trump, but it's backfired spectacularly, and they are far less popular than they were before. Far far more people think that Schmidt is straight up evil than they did 2 or 4 or 6 years ago, and AI talk is only accelerating that.

They haven't seen how things have switched in a year, just how unpopular they in particular they have become, and how a good chunk of Trump's unpopularity is due to his sucking up to billionaires like Schmidt and Bezos and Cook and Musk. They don't see just how betrayed the people are, who thought that Trump would fight for the common many. (I say this trying to restrain my judgement that working person who thought Trump was on their side is an easily fooled chump... but...)

The actions of Elon Musk in particular are now so toxic that people drive around with stickers on their car about how much they dislike him.

The Paypal Mafia plus a few others like Schmidt have taken the great work and innovation coming out of Silicon Valley and turned it all into toxic BS.

tacocataco• 2 months ago

"okay, then what?”

The status quo is what we negotiated, using our labor as our only bargaining chip. Do you expect future negotiations, with zero leverage on our side, to yield better results?

archagon• 2 months ago

Why? Because all these tech "leaders" are huffing each other's glue.

mancerayder2• 2 months ago

I’m genuinely confused as to why the speakers are baffled by the boos

My friend, do you see how C-suites, even in our own companies, are talking? Here's one that made headlines all over the business-press, I think it speaks for itself:

May 19th, 2026

StanChart CEO Winters Says AI to Replace "Lower-Value Human Capital"

“It’s not cost cutting; it’s replacing in some cases lower-value human capital.” Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters delivered a blunt message on the future of the bank’s workforce. Aisha S. Gani explains the growing trend among finance leaders acknowledging the realities of AI technology replacing jobs."

booleandilemma2• 2 months ago

There is nothing about AI that seems like it's going to have a net positive for humanity. Faster code? Sure. Better chatbots? Sure. Textual analysis? Sure. But the downside, and it's huge, is massive unemployment and societal collapse. Nothing AI brings to the table is worth having an unemployment rate of 25% (or more).

Our society is simply not ready for this. We need to rework things from the ground up, not proceed blindly (which is what we're currently doing), if we want to successfully integrate AI into our lives without massive pain.

jstanley3• 2 months ago

We've done this dozens of times before. In the short term some people suffer and that is bad for them. In the long term everyone is much better off due to increased productivity.

dmbche• 2 months ago

When is the productivity showing up?

littlexsparkee5• 2 months ago

everyone? this is pure conjecture and cold comfort for anyone early/mid career

throwaway274483• 2 months ago

Only if you view productivity as likely to distribute results to society. This has been proven false again and again over the last fifty years, and the k-shaped economic trend seems to be accelerating.

yoyohello134• 2 months ago

What’s really baffling is the people in charge seem to just expect the suffering people to sit down and take it. That’s probably why they are pushing so hard for the surveillance state.

toasty228• 2 months ago

In the long term everyone is much better off due to increased productivity. reply

Do people still believe in these fairy tales lmao? Most of the productivity gains don't go to the workers, pretty much everywhere in the developed world working hours and retirement age are going up, housing affordability is going down. You're not "much better off"

https://assets.weforum.org/editor/HFNnYrqruqvI_-Skg2C7ZYjdcX...

Politicians were selling us the 3 days workweek like 40+ years ago, while shilling for more automated factories, it never happened, it didn't happen with computers, it won't happen with AI

rybosworld2• 2 months ago

We've done this dozens of times before.

No, we really haven't. Every previous wave of automation has targeted human labor.

The thing that makes human's unique in the animal kingdom is our intelligence. From an economic stand point, that's the thing that makes people valuable.

When that's automated, what is there left? Onlyfans?

pesus6• 2 months ago

I'd love for everyone justifying and hand waving the suffering of others to quit their jobs, give up their assets, and join in on the suffering. If it's really worth it for the "increased productivity", they should have no problem doing so. After all, they'll be much better off in the end, right?

hello_moto• 2 months ago

short-term?

how about 100 years?

Beginning in Great Britain around 1760, the Industrial Revolution had spread to continental Europe and the United States by about 1840

You know what else happened during that 100-200 years time frame? 2 Wars + Governments decided to step in and rebuild post-war. Governments tax the rich/elite by 90%.

You know what else happened? workers being punished physically and mentally until the formation of Unions.

You skipped a big chunk of The Ruling Class always exploit everybody else like what we're seeing right now: Tech CEOs laying off and not hiring.

History repeats again.

Are our productivity increase for the better? People are still working overtime because of reduced worker's protection today.

happytoexplain9• 2 months ago

Every time, the people suffering are correct to revolt, and the people trying to repress them are incorrect to repress them, from the perspective of human beings.

Every time, the "increased productivity" is inevitable, but that is not the same as better off. None of these changes has been 100% positive, even in the long run, and this one is shaping up to be the most disappointing of them all in that dimension.

Inevitable != purely good.

You can be pragmatic and give a shit about humans at the same time. It's not a puzzle.

dakiol2• 2 months ago

Who cares about productivity? Your CEO. Not you, not me. We all cannot be CEOs.

harimau7773• 2 months ago

Ya, fuck those people suffering in the short term! I got mine!

JohnFen2• 2 months ago

Historically, this is not always true. It's a gamble. Right now, a small group of ultra-wealthy tech guys who have a clear disdain for everyone else is trying to gamble the future of us all.

That's infuriating right there.

Also,

In the short term some people suffer and that is bad for them.

The casual way that the well-being and survival of people in the here-and-now is disregarded doubles how infuriating this all is.

leptons6• 2 months ago

The last time something like this happened, we got the great depression. Do you want another great depression? The next one will likely be far worse than the last one.

palmotea3• 2 months ago

Those kids are crazy. We're finally close to realizing the dream of making labor obsolete, how could they not be excited and enthusiastic about the future? Most of them will no longer needed, and thankfully those that are still needed can be paid more reasonable wages (i.e. lower ones).

It's a win-win for everyone. The lower prices enabled by automation allow them to stretch their savings or inheritance further before its exhausted.

perching_aix3• 2 months ago

@palmotea: Doesn't matter. We're finally close to realizing the dream of making labor obsolete, or nearly so. Most of those kids are no longer needed, and thankfully those that are still needed can be paid more reasonable wages (lower ones).

Who's gonna buy the products and services provided by automated labor? What will prevent a hyperinflation, making savings evaporate? Or do you further envision a mass genocide of the poor to go along with this?

palmotea3• 2 months ago

Or do you further envision a mass genocide of the poor to go along with this?

When their savings are exhausted, the problem will have a way of "taking care of itself." No gas chambers, no guns, just capitalism.

ipython• 2 months ago

how do you... earn those savings in the first place? (or am I missing a /s somewhere?)

littlexsparkee5• 2 months ago

i read it as sarcastic, too cheeky not to be

sbarre• 2 months ago

The lower prices enabled by automation

LOL

In the modern digital era, technological efficiencies and disruption have almost always led to rent-seeking monopolies, regulatory capture to prevent competition and enshittification leading to higher prices for end users.

apothegm• 2 months ago

I think you may have run afoul of Poe’s Law.

Mordisquitos2• 2 months ago

What I found surprising of the couple of video examples I've seen was not the students' reactions; those were completely predictable. Rather, what most stood out to me was the absolute detachment displayed by the speakers in believing that the students would like to hear their dystopian AI maximalism, and their inability to read the room and understand the reaction from the audience.

topspin• 2 months ago

The instinctual reaction of Gloria Caufield when she got booed at UCF was to characterize the "issue" as "bipolar"; invoking mental health terminology. Schmidt called his AI future "democratization." Don't be antidemocratic, kids! Since then, the media narrative throughout the reporting has been about "anxiety" and "fear".

One might hope that folks can see the time-honored patterns here. This isn't new. It's just not frequently experienced by those that have earned degrees.

rybosworld2• 2 months ago

Executives of these tech companies keep saying the automation of intelligence will drive job creation because previous waves of automation did the same.

To anyone with a brain, that is obviously not true.

If AI continues to improve at the pace that it has been, why would anyone hire a human to do the thinking? Human intelligence will be orders of magnitude more expensive, and much slower...

The tech executives know this and they actually just do not care. The reason they are saying it will drive job creation is just to temporarily keep worker anxiety levels to a minimum.

To be clear, I am not claiming that all human work will be automated away soon. Just that a huge portion of it will be.

bawolff4• 2 months ago

If AI continues to improve at the pace that it has been, why would anyone hire a human to do the thinking?

Sure, but that is the big if, right? It seems unlikely to me that AI will continue at this rate indefinitely. Every technology eventually hits limits.

thrance• 2 months ago

It "just" has to reach human-levels, which I won't rule out entirely as being achievable.

seanw444• 2 months ago

To be clear, I am not claiming that all human work will be automated away soon. Just that a huge portion of it will be.

You don't even need to be a believer in the technology to be concerned. All that matters is that the people with all the money perceive some positive outcome for their wallets from all this investment and AI hype. That is where they'll put their money. Whether or not it ends bad or good. The economy has been reshaped around a hope. Either the hope is false and the economy tanks, or the hope is realized and jobs disappear. Lose-lose.

reducesuffering• 2 months ago

Exactly. If the AI owner class actually want anyone to believe that AI will bring jobs and prosperity, then people will want to see a little of that in action? You can't say "AI will bring even better jobs for you!" when all that's observed is 20% layoffs every single week.

throwaway274483• 2 months ago

Who thought it was a good idea to involve AI into a commencement speech? Talk about showing contempt to the graduates!

analog31• 2 months ago

Who thought it was a good idea to invite a billionaire?

joezydeco• 2 months ago

There's a bit of hypocrisy going on as well. Are you sure 100% of those kids in the crowd never touched AI to help them with an assignment or fake their way through a homework?

The feeling I get right now is that we're happy to use the assist when necessary, but hate being told it will replace you completely.

happytoexplain9• 2 months ago

"100%" is a meaningless bar.

we're happy to use the assist when necessary, but hate being told it will replace you completely

There is absolutely no hypocrisy in this, and that's even before this adjustment to reality: Usage != happy to use.

jcranmer• 2 months ago

I know a lot of people are going to focus on the employment issue for new graduates, but there's another dimension to consider: this group of students is going to be the first group who have gone through all of college with the enhanced cheating power of LLMs. The majority of people graduating will either have used LLMs to cheat on some classes, or at least known someone who did so. Which incidentally also means that they have a much better idea than the speakers do about how good these AI tools at the variety of tasks someone in an entry-level role might be expected to do. It is also worth noting that Gen Z in general is the most skeptical of the generations of the utility of AI.

dakiol2• 2 months ago

People are not idiots. AI benefits only the ones at the top of the chain, and the 10% of the rest of us. Are you in the top 10%? No, you typically are in the bottom 90%. So we don't want AI, we don't want the top getting richer at our expenses. We just want a job to bring bread home and keeping pushing our store while being "happy". You take that away from us, just so you can double your net worth, and well, bad things will start to happen

ferguess_k3• 2 months ago

Yeah. So many people drinking the cool-aid dreaming oneself to be the 10%.

xboxnolifes• 2 months ago

A lot of people in tech are probably in the 10%. But, the real problem is that AI doesn't even really help those in the top 10%. Maybe just barely, if you already accumulated your wealth. It's really closer to the top 5% who won't be particularly negatively affected.

ThrowawayR23• 2 months ago

"Are you in the top 10%?"

The answer is obviously yes for the majority of HN readers. Hacker News is a site maintained by a huge venture capital fund for startup founders and employees and other venture capitalists plus a lot employees of FAANG and other big tech. You are preaching against the 10% to the 10%.

tavavex2• 2 months ago

Definitely not the majority. Looking at the US, which is probably home to the most users of this website, the threshold for top 10% net worth is at $1.8m, and the threshold for top 10% income is $210k. There's many rich people like that here, but I think the average person is just a standard tech worker, maybe a senior, but not someone from a top company. They're overrepresented here, no doubt about that, but most people just aspire to be in the top 10% and defend the rich and ultra-rich because they dream of being just like them one day.

everdrive• 2 months ago

You are preaching against the 10% to the 10% [as one of the top 10%].

A staple of progressive tradition.

evil-olive• 2 months ago

“I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you,” Schmidt responded as the boos continued. “There is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating … and I understand that fear.”

71 year old man with a net worth of $64 billion [0] tells a bunch of 20-somethings (many of whom have tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt that they will need to start repaying soon) that he understands how they feel.

yeah, I can't imagine why he got a hostile response from the crowd...

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

breakpointalpha• 2 months ago

U of Arizona graduated roughly 10,000 students this weekend.

Schmidt could have paid off every student loan for every graduate in full and not even noticed it as a rounding error in his net worth.

Would have done so much more for humanity that this vapid speech.

stogot• 2 months ago

fact that universities admin think this speaker was a good choice also shows how out of touch admin has been

jdw64• 2 months ago

It felt like a big advertisement. It felt like the longest Gemini ad ever

If anything, this incident might just inspire Eric Schmidt to cut even more entry-level data processing jobs and deploy a few extra agents to automate them

monknomo2• 2 months ago

Commencements are about the students, and celebrating their hard work and achievements over several years.

A common thread in these commencements with booing is that the speaker is not centering the student. They're centering AI, and talking about AI's potential, which is, at best, orthogonal to the student's potential, and possibly actively detrimental. Small wonder

everyone• 2 months ago

In theory more automation = less drudge work for humans, so its great. But in practice, in corrupt societies, elites reap all the benefits while the lower classes eat all the downsides.

The thing is though, this is not a tech problem, it's a society problem. Elites will use literally any technology from any era to do the same thing. It's been the case for 1000's of years, even Romans had factories and slave powered mega-farms for example.

Lots of countries are extremely corrupt, they have systems that allow power to concentrate over time (political/ military/ financial, it doesnt matter, it ends up the same either way. Eg. With enough financial power you also gain all the political power and vice versa). That's the root issue people should be trying to fix imo. And how to fix? I dunno, something drastic, we probably need something like the French revolutions.

itsafarqueue• 2 months ago

Herein lies the seeds of the Revolution that is being fomented by the very class of educators, speakers, and generationally privileged who exhibit casual, naive contempt for the audience they drone on their tone-deaf sermons, utterly oblivious to the toxic duplicity of the messages they shove down throats of those who bear the worst of the costs externalised by those spreading “the good word”. They can all burn.

DonsDiscountGas• 2 months ago

“His speech was incredibly disrespectful to students,” said Malone. “We as students are discouraged from using it and penalized for using it. And then to have our speaker be the champion of AI is just like, OK? Why?”

It's a perfectly fair question and the answer is that being a practitioner is different from being a student. If you want to hear some nice music you can learn to play and then record yourself, or you can buy/rent/freely acquire an existing recording. Both valid options, one is obviously a lot faster. If you want to be able to play music yourself, you have to do it yourself. Learning can't be outsourced.

Somebody really should be explaining that to students.

glitchc2• 2 months ago

But they are learning to practice, at least in some of the courses (others are focused on much-needed theory).

It's like forcing students to write code by hand because using an editor would give away too much. And I know first-hand that CS education used to do precisely this as I have proctored such exams myself. What needs a rethink is how education, especially CS education, is imparted given the existence of these tools.

FloorEgg2• 2 months ago

What needs a rethink is how education, especially CS education, is imparted given the existence of these tools.

This is true of most of the education system. It all needs a rethink.

glitchc2• 2 months ago

*by hand I mean hand-written on a piece of paper.

FloorEgg2• 2 months ago

Knowledge can be transferred but understanding has to be earned from experience (doing something and getting some sort of feedback).

LLMs are commoditizing knowledge, qnd the result will be a relative increase in the value of human understanding and skills.

Some people may be baffled by the boos because they are so wealthy they lost touch with what it feels like to struggle to create and capture enough value to afford a dignified life. Some people are frustrated by the boos because it represents the failure of the education system to prepare students to thrive in an environment where thriving is very possible if you have the right attitude and skills.

Personally, I'm frustrated because many of these students are being sabotaged by the media they consume, and the education system is not equiped to deal with the deep pessimism or prepare students for the new ways to create and capture value.

amanaplanacanal3• 2 months ago

Billionaires greasing the tracks to the Butlerian Jihad.

ChrisArchitect• 2 months ago

[dupe]

The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48188310

Eric Schmidt booed at University of Arizona after praising AI

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48172419

Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096674

Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48177107

An AI Hate Wave Is Here

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48173318

Garlef• 2 months ago

"Do you guys not have phones?"

1vuio0pswjnm7• 2 months ago

Are "tech" workers pawns in the game

soundworlds• 2 months ago

It is incredibly important for people to be aware that this is one of the few new technologies where older generations are far more optimistic than younger generations. Less than 1/5 of Gen Z are optimistic about it, and the number is falling: https://news.gallup.com/poll/708224/gen-adoption-steady-skep...

To me this signals something very fragile about the current frontier AI Org's strategies.

Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements

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