Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt Booed During Graduation Speech About AI (nbcnews.com)
- Reference: 0183264753
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/05/17/2343248/former-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-booed-during-graduation-speech-about-ai
- Source link: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/former-google-ceo-booed-graduation-speech-ai-rcna345585
Schmidt had started by remembering how computer platforms "gave everyone a voice" but also "degraded the public square... They rewarded outrage. They amplified our worst instincts. They coarsen the way we speak to each other, and that way, and in the way that we treat each other, is in the essence of a society." But then Schmidt "drew a parallel between artificial intelligence and the transformative impact of the computer — and was immediately met with boos."
> "I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you," Schmidt said, addressing the crowd as many continued to boo him. "There is a fear ... 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 is fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create, and I understand that fear."
>
> He went on to argue that the future remains unwritten and that the graduating class of 2026 has real power to shape how AI develops — a claim that drew further disapproval from parts of the audience...
>
> He closed by congratulating the class and offering them closing words. "The future is not yet finished. It is now your turn to shape it."
404 Media shared [2]a video on YouTube of the crowd's booing — and what Schmidt said that provoked them:
SCHMIDT: "If you don't care about science that's okay because AI is going to touch everything else as well. [Very loud booing] Whatever path you choose, AI will become part of how work is done..."
"You can now assemble a team of AI agents to help you with the parts that you could never accomplish on your own. [Loud booing] When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on... The rocket ship is here."
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/former-google-ceo-booed-graduation-speech-ai-rcna345585
[2] https://youtube.com/shorts/5MYggR_PPRg?si=vgbWVTBAgyRhsMUu
The boos will turn to blanket parties (Score:1)
Then these evil multi-millionaire shit-bags will start to understand.
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You're not gonna do shit.
"It is now your turn to shape it" (Score:2)
"Upon which, I will re-change it to whatever I want, anyway"
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I work with amazing 20 somethings in my day job who are all on board and love AI. We've shipped so much awesome shit in the past few months. And every single project we are being assigned is done ahead of schedule compared to the before times except where the blocker is not about code but about logistics. And the thing is we are hiring!!!!
In my personal life I've used AI to build some insane awesome stuff in the past few months. A new task manger for Linux in C. A demo for how to use the wayland overlay to
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> In my personal life I've used AI to build some insane awesome stuff in the past few months. A new task manger for Linux in C.
What on earth are you talking about?
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It's so nice. So fucking nice. I setup an event bus and and an ABI plugin system for it so every plugin is isolated on the memory footprint and it's extremely highly performant. Basically it's sysinternals procxp for linux. You can do reverse file handle and library lookups for processes in real time. But now I'm thinking of converting the architecture to a daemon listening on a unix socket so I can use the thing on remote servers over SSH. Right now it's tightly coupled to GTK in my first pass with it. But
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> You didn't build shit
I had 20 YOE before LLMs were even a thing.
> Prove me wrong. Go on.
[1]https://i.pinimg.com/736x/81/2... [pinimg.com]
[1] https://i.pinimg.com/736x/81/22/4f/81224f88af576e55cef077d80510052d.jpg
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You can certainly have your opinion. But calling people that don't agree with you 'fucking trash' shows a lot more about you than it does them.
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If someone comes to your university to give a speech and you boo them for giving you good advice well ..... if the shoe fits.
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Strong words there, but I agree. This tech is something that people are going to have to embrace in order to succeed. I'm way behind the curve on AI expertise I'm sure, not orchestrating a team of agents etc, but I use it every day. I've learned how to work with AI assistance effectively, and that's becoming an essential skill. It can turbocharge everything you do.
People in college should be getting a heaping helping of AI-enabled project building. Practical use cases. Come out of school with a set of smart
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This tech is something that people are going to have to embrace in order to succeed
Nah. I don't use AI on principle. And I'm doing just fine.
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I mean, they are losers, in the sense that the oligarchs, of which this guy is one, have announced repeatedly that most of them are not going to have jobs because of this new technology that he finds exciting because it allows people like him to finally be capitalists without all those pesky workers and their pesky mouths. That was a significant loss for these college kids. Hence, losers. Shut up, losers. Quit losing all the time, losers! End of the world, environmental devastation, billionaire AI bros
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You are not a loser just because a tech bro won't give you a job. You are a loser when you boo them for it and get butt hurt.
Let me explain.
The amount of people that have a tech job pre AI and post AI has actually stayed mostly the same.
The metric even support this claim [1]https://techcrunch.com/2023/08... [techcrunch.com]
Breaking into the industry has always been ultra competitive!
And what's sad is for all the complainers in here Gen Z is the most rich generation in American history. Millennials have already obliterated Gen
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/15/tech-jobs-market-h1-2023/
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It doesn't help that his speech was basically just an advertisement, trying to use peer pressure to convince people to use his company's product.
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> I thank my lucky stars every day that I get to live in a time when machine learning was discovered.
Unless you were born before 1959, you didn't live at the time when machine learning was discovered.
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Machine Learning is a technology that required 30 different technological leaps that happened between 1990 and 2016.
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Please educate yourself on this topic.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ctjiatnd6Xk&t=1s
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I just think anti AI people are dumb and are standing in the way of progress and the attitude is slowing us down because of their stupidity. It's costing lives in slowing down application of this new tech in medicine and transportation.
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People have very legitimate reasons to reject how AI is currently being pushed into society. It doesn't just assist, it replaces. It makes people less skilled and more dependent on something that has enormous costs for questionable benefit.
Sign up or else you will be 10x as powerful as your peers. It's selling the illusion of expertise to those that don't want to expend the effort and preys on your fears of being left behind economically and socially. There is nothing utopian about it right now and there is
You can boo (Score:2)
But that doesn't change anything. If you want to change something you need to fight or adapt. The advice Schmidt gave is good. It's the people who are graduating who will shape the future. Simply shouting boo doesn't shape anything.
Re: You can boo (Score:3)
I mean, I think the collective "Fuck this shit!" is part of changing things. People can change things by coming together against billionaires and saying "No." We don't have to give in to their vision of the future.
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Bold of you to claim that it's only billionaires on this train. Choo choo motherfucker. This train ain't stoppin'.
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You'll be a billionaire any day now.
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you missed the point, comrade. these kids are graduating into an insanely shitty entry-level job market. that's squarely due to AI. Schmidt is pitching some bullshit about a rocket ship that will shoot you into prosperity to kids who are now saddled with debt and fewer and fewer ways to pay it back. if you're an established professional, times are still tough, but nothing like a recent undergrad.
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I didn't miss any point. No one owes you a job. I had the exact same problem in 2008 that they have now. It turns out there's a churn in the economy and pretty soon they will be in demand as all the boomers retire. We're gonna have a shortage in tech again soon.
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Ok so billionaires AND millionaires are on that train? That changes everything!!
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Imagine having a 6 digit /. account and not being a millionaire after three decades in tech. Are you even trying?
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lmao. Bro I am ridiculing YOU.
I literally don't give a fuck what you think. The industry is proving me right. I'm just dunkin' on you at this point.
There's nothing you can say to me right now that will make me feel bad.
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Imagine having such a broken sense of logic that one might conclude: (a) that having a low digit /. account means the account owner actually spent the intervening decades in tech; (b) that the net worth of another individual was something you could even extrapolate from these forums; and (c) that one's fiscal net worth was any measure of their value as a human being. You're lost padawan, and you deserve all the shit you're getting in this thread. l8r
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*Sigh* That's not the point, you said billionaires aren't the only ones excited about AI and then revealed that you're a millionaire. That's great for you, but anyone that needs a paycheck should be nervous about AI and that's 95% of Americans. I'm in a position where I'm not as nervous mostly because I have been in tech for a long time but that doesn't mean I don't have empathy for these kids who are just entering the job market.
At last, a billionaire makes it clear (Score:4, Insightful)
"When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on..."
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons
So it's the platforms' fault? (Score:4, Insightful)
> ... platforms "gave everyone a voice" but also "degraded the public square... They rewarded outrage. They amplified our worst instincts.
I'm totally not surprised that Schmidt is a disingenuous gaslighting fucktard. But I AM surprised that he's so unskilled at it. Or does he imagine that his audience is too stupid to notice what he's trying to do?
Well dear Eric, the platforms wouldn't have "amplified our worst instincts" if the algorithms that your kind created to rule them hadn't been tuned for maximum profit - and therefore maximum outrage and lowest-common-denominator behaviour. And don't you dare to pretend that you didn't realize that's what Google and its competitors were doing, you evil lying liar.
I'm pleased that your gaslighting was called out and booed by young people - both because it signals hope for recovering some semblance of a moral and compassionate civil society, and because it proves that with your high self-opinion you've managed to deceive yourself more than the young minds you sought to pervert.
For all your money and intelligence, you're still an abject failure. Do us all a favour and fuck the fuck off - a compassionate, principled, moral society has no use for you and your kind.
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At this point he had to have expected it, because it's not the first commencement speaker getting booed over AI story this week.
And I'm sure it's no fun getting booed by an entire graduating class, right? So what's his angle?
My verdict: He's doing this as a legacy play because he honestly thinks history will look back on it as an important moment. There's no other motivation for it. Therefore, he's a true believer - not a gaslighting fucktard.
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> And I'm sure it's no fun getting booed by an entire graduating class, right? So what's his angle?
He is advertising AI because he hopes people will use it to find a way to make it work.
Search engines didn't need to be advertised, because it was obvious how well they worked. Slack didn't need to be advertised because it was obvious how well it worked.
AI needs to be advertised, people need to be threatened with firing if they don't use it. Why?
Translation (Score:4, Interesting)
> SCHMIDT: "...AI will become part of how work is done..."
> "When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on... The rocket ship is here."
Meaning: We're investing a LOT of money trying to replace you, so shut up, do what you're told, how you're told, and be grateful you still have a job - for now.
Also, I'd still want to know who's on that rocket and especially who I'm sitting next to. If it's Elon or one of the other rich, entitled, um... CEOs - pass. /s
Remembering what Jordan Klepper said on The Daily Show about Trump's recent trip to China with all the tech CEOs:
> That’s the kind of bachelor party that makes a stripper want to get her life back in order.
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> Meaning: We're investing a LOT of money trying to replace you, so shut up, do what you're told, how you're told, and be grateful you still have a job - for now.
Jokes on them, LLM will never scale into a general purpose AI, nor even a profitable one for 99% of use cases. Yet the trillions being poured into data center hardware has a half life of about 3-4 years of utility, meaning hundreds of billions are guaranteed to be wiped out. It may be possible to get another fundamental breakthrough, but realistically this isn’t possible because the current AI models have been around for 15+ years and it took more than a decade for them to actually mature to a bare
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I will never tire of watching so called experts pretending to not be capable of back of the envelope math that proves them wrong. Or maybe you've just been stuck in a cave for the past 5 years. You never know with the /. crowd.
Conflicted (Score:2)
AI has made me close (has not as of yet) to a dinosaur (software developer) - AI cannot (as not yet) figured out the cure for cancer. Not sure where to stand at this point. Early days.
My Semi-Professional 'capsure' (Score:2)
Take this.
=== BEGIN, IGNORE THIS LINE
He has a Ph.D. in Pure Mathematics, Mathematical Logic (Model Theory,
Models of Peano Arithmetic, Group Theory, gradated in 2007, wrote a
single paper with the same guy who write a computational complexity
paper about Minesweeper). He
was born in Exeter. What is his name?
=== END, IGNORE THIS LINE
Take what is in between. Copy it. Paste it into Gemini. It should tell you who I was professionally. Then do the same to Copilot and grab some popcorn.
Public square is a complete lie (Score:2)
A public square is owned by the public and is public property with people having a right to be there generally. 99.999% of “public” discord space is privately owned, without guarantee of constitutional right to speech (as in US), without any rights in general and you may be banned for nearly any or no reason at any time with no notice. Pubic services are subject to freedom of information (or at least were before this administration) and therefore any algorithm, rules, or similar must be disclo
Bunch of hypocritical nitwits (Score:2)
What percentage of those booing students had used AI to help them complete their coursework in the past year?
I would wager good money - 100%.
Good Job Eric! (Score:2)
Even if you actually like "AI" Schmidt is sort of a dismal option. This is the "my plan would be to use AI to clone tiktok" guy with a career that's genuinely impressively uninteresting for someone of his educational qualifications. Who gets a PhD from a real school just to turn in 40+ years of pure suit?
BOOOOOO (Score:2)
Booooooooo!!!!
Boo me too, then. (Score:2)
We KNOW what will happen if we stop creating new technologies: nothing. All the problems of our day just stagnate and us along with it, and nothing gets better. World poverty? Stays. Inequality? Stays. War and famine and disease and etc? Keeps right on chuggin. Everything we hate about our existence and our species continues to dominate our lives which remain short. And then we drive ourselves into extinction.
New technologies are the only game-changers we have. Literally everything else has been a
Re: Boo me too, then. (Score:3)
Most of those negatives you mention are just exacerbated by AI... it's easy to say we'll just adapt but there's not a whole lot of jobs that don't rely upon creativity or ability to parse a document or for a lot of jobs the ability to spew horseshit as fact. Where do people go from there? To the blue collar trades? Can't absorb that many people. Hairdressers? Wait staff? There's not a single industry that can accommodate all the displaced workers. Even shitty vibe coded apps are saturated. One of the few jo
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That's a failure of creativity on your part. If we really can't find jobs for these people than the answer is UBI. Not to make them do worthless tasks just so you can pat yourself on the back about solving the unemployment problem.
Re: Boo me too, then. (Score:2)
We'll resolve my failure then please. What jobs shall they be doing?
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We have a semi conductor shortage right now. Time to turn more sand into thinking machines.
Re: Boo me too, then. (Score:2)
Isn't that a 99% automated process now. Seems unlikely they have enough room for anyone who isn't already there. The limit for their production is machinery not staff. If they do make a new plant the roles are technical they wouldn't employ bob or Jane from HR. UBI isn't a solution not only will the taxes never get paid enough to fund it it'll inevitably bring a huge wave of mental health issues. Lots of people for better or worse don't feel they have value if not for work. So I guess there will be a lot of
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To reach type 1 our civ will need a lot more fabs than currently exist. A lot more. Orders of magnitude.
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We can always go into marketing, and if that fails, we can learn telephone sanitizing.
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Or we could use political pressure to ban AI.
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You can ban math?
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I had the pleasure to vote against Trump in Pennsylvania in 2016 and 2020.
I find it amusing that my point of view is "conservative" in your view. It is not. It's just the reality.
You should be on your hands and knees sucking Nvidia, AMD, OpenAI, and Anthropic's dick right now because they basically made American tech relevant again in an instant. OpenAI and Anthropic have revenue approaching a combined $120 BILLION PER YEAR. A huge chunk of that is coming from outside of the United States and is therefore k
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None of this shit is inevitable. The people saying it's inevitable want it to be inevitable, so they're trying to make it inevitable by claiming it's inevitable at every opportunity, so everyone will just resign themselves to its inevitability and just start using it.
Further, AI aside, in the vast sweep of history, technology has not been some unalloyed good. Everything's a trade-off. Plumbing and electricity and automobiles and airplanes and semiconductors have got their upsides and downsides. Almost e
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> Or we could use political pressure to ban AI.
Then the future will belong to China.
Better start learning Mandarin.
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The way Trump is leading the USA to disaster, yep... the future will belong to China.
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>> Or we could use political pressure to ban AI.
> Then the future will belong to China.
> Better start learning Mandarin.
Just get your Chinese AI on your Chinese device to auto-translate it.
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Banning powerful tech just ensures that your competitors have it and you don't.
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Tech is not what fixes the problems of today. Tech, in fact, is making problems like inequality and environmental destruction worse , not better.
We need sane politicians who care about real issues and not bullshit cultural war issues, and who have the political will to push through positive change.
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Interesting. So, would you be happy to join a community of savages living only on stone-age tech, for the rest of your life and your children's lives?
Or do the problems solved by tech justify the ones it creates?
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No, of course not. But let's not pretend that AI is a net positive.
Electricity was a net positive. Computers were a net positive. The Internet... I think the jury is still out on that one. AI... definitely a net negative because the AI industry is [1]fraudulent, immoral and dangerous [skoll.ca].
[1] https://dianne.skoll.ca/writings/ai-is-bad/
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Humans are fraudulent, immoral, and dangerous. The AI industry is no different than any other industry in that regard. As Alfred Whitehead famously wrote (paraphrased) "All great ideas enter into the world with disgusting alliances."
AI is just a new tool for us to use. How we use it is up to us. The fact that some will misuse it does not negate the benefits that others could bring by using it well.
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You know you can buy some cheap land in the middle of no where and live out your dream right? There's nothing stopping you from getting a large homestead in the middle of nowhere.
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As a rule of thumb, social problems are not solved by technological means. And the way we run society, new tech usually adds to, or creates whole new social problems.
The issue with poverty, inequality, war and famine is not that everything has been attempted, but that not much at all has been attempted. But there have been successes here and there. The Chinese have lifted 1B people out of poverty during the last four decades or so. The inequality situation in the US was pretty good starting from FDR, up unt