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Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution
- jklinger410 5mo agoIf you want people to like AI, show them a future that doesn't leave them in abject poverty.
- richwater 5mo agoThat's quite an unsubstantiated leap. The world has gone through plenty of digital transformations and the number of people in poverty has only _shrank_.
- danaris 5mo agoYes, but during those transformations, the CEOs of the companies selling the products involved weren't actively and aggressively marketing them as being able to replace all the humans they employ. You can't have it both ways: either LLMs are an amazing, revolutionary technology that can replace many human jobs in unprecedented ways, or it's going to be a mild transition that really only helps people.
- zamadatix 5mo agoIt isn't the first time a new technology has been pitched to replace many worker's jobs, both successful and unsuccessful versions of the promise have come to pass several times. I think what they are saying is "that something can replace a job does not inherently imply the next step is poverty". From that perspective, you can absolutely have it both (and many other combinations of) ways.
- Sh0000reZ 5mo ago[flagged]
- jklinger410 5mo agoWhy don't you show us how AI will not create abject poverty? How are we not going to be begging whoever controls chip fabs and electrical plants for compute tokens? HOW!? EXPLAIN IT.
- Sh0000reZ 5mo ago[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago> Settle down, toddler Please don’t do this.
- Sh0000reZ 5mo ago[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago> You want people to stick to social norms, call it both ways Oh, I downvoted both of you. But I only flagged you because of the name calling, which is against the guidelines [1]. When I flag I like to give the person on the other side a note, in case they genuinely didn’t know. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Sh0000reZ 5mo ago[flagged]
- whatshisface 5mo agoHow would improved standards and reliability make the AI alternative to white collar jobs less appealing?
- madaxe_again 5mo agoThat was exactly what a great many things were marketed as, such as the jacquard loom and dynamite. What actually happened in each case was that employment went up for a good long while, as the efficiency boost to the sectors touched made investment far more viable. Eventually successive rounds of automation did reduce employment in each of weaving and mining, but it wasn’t an overnight catastrophe as initially advertised or feared.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago> the CEOs of the companies selling the products involved weren't actively and aggressively marketing them as being able to replace all the humans they employ The assembly line was explicitly about replacing skilled with relatively unskilled labor.
- satisfice 5mo agoThen it should easy to show a world where we are all not in abject poverty. We’re waiting.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- xantronix 5mo agoIt's hard not to make that leap when so many layoffs are (according to PR releases anyway) attributed to AI adoption. Even if the reality on the ground is that many of these workforce reductions are to make the balance sheets look better (presumably as a bet on AI), it's impossible to ignore the accelerating wealth gap, especially in the context of the gutting of regulations and state actors leveraging world events on prediction markets. We will not be given a fair deal if we simply wait for our benefactors to provide one.
- anigbrowl 5mo agoThe number of people in absolute poverty has shrunk, but the proportion of national income held by the wealthy has increased, so economic mobility is declining. There are many reasons for this, but typically deployment of technology is a capital expense and employers aim to realize all the gains from their investment, notwithstanding the upskilling and/or deskilling effect it has on workers, who are treated as fungible economic units rather than people. Nobody likes this except capitalists.
- piloto_ciego 5mo agoDoom is popular right now. People want to feel terrible and pessimistic and their media diets only reinforce this.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo agoTo be fair, the labour market for a recent humanities graduate is quite crap right now, too.
- Esophagus4 5mo agoIn particular, CS students are feeling it more than most majors. (Especially compared with the shock that most of them probably thought CS was the field for job security.) Saw an article recently that said CS majors were up there with performing arts majors and art history majors in terms of unemployment rate.
- piloto_ciego 5mo agoThis is true. Computer Systems Engineering is pretty high.
- piloto_ciego 5mo agoIt's going to be bad indefinitely until we don't really have "jobs" any more in any sort of meaningful sense.
- jklinger410 5mo agoTo be fair the last 60 years have seen wealth distribution consolidate at the top of this country at rates never seen in human history.
- trhway 5mo ago[flagged]
- jklinger410 5mo ago> You can't have it both ways. Yes you can. They use AI and also despise it because it will turn the world into one big caste system. Ones with access to compute, and ones without.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- pesus 5mo agoFor someone taking about basic logic, you're making quite the leap in logic by assuming they used LLMs to do every single bit of schoolwork.
- trhway 5mo ago[dead]
- surgical_fire 5mo agoThe funny thing is that it's not even true. People invested in AI just glee at the thought of common men in abject poverty, so this is the marketing that stuck. Shows you don't need to have red skin and horns to delight in the suffering of starving people.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago> show them a future that doesn't leave them in abject poverty To be fair, this isn’t the commencement speaker’s job.
- breakpointalpha 5mo agoIf this is sarcasm, it's amazing. If not, depressing. I would 100% expect a commencement speaker to be hyping me up for what comes next.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago> would 100% expect a commencement speaker to be hyping me up That’s what this speaker was trying to do. The problem is it was stupid and dishonest. It could have been done properly. But none of that will rise to the level of a roadmap. If you’re looking for a roadmap at commencement, you were failed at multiple steps before.
- andai 5mo agoCost of goods and services drops by orders of magnitude at every point in the supply chain. That being said we already have relative superabundance and we're more miserable than ever, so it's not clear that more of it will cheer us up.
- jklinger410 5mo agoUnemployment rampant. All production remains in the hands of a few. All power (tokens) remains in the hands of a few. Goods are cheaper but no one can buy them. Path to the upper class now guarded closely by tokens, potential avenues for entrepreneurs diminish rapidly. Own an AI or compute, get someone to give you tokens, or live in poverty. Distribution of abundance in current time is close to evil, America reducing entitlements and support (not expanding). Rampant waste. No reason to think any of this will change.
- andai 5mo agoI'm voting for your future.
- CivBase 5mo ago> Cost of goods and services drops by orders of magnitude at every point in the supply chain. That sounds great, but how are LLMs supposed to achieve this? You can't just say "AI will make a utopia". You have to present a vision for how it will get us there. I'm tired of hearing about how AI will solve all the worlds problems. I want to see actual progress towards achieving these goals. And for the most part that hasn't manifested. Most people would consider AI to have had a net negative impact on their lives.
- voxl 5mo agoThis is the kind of commentary that is completely detached from reality: people want housing, people want food, people want gas. It's not great that we can buy iphones (and AI is going to cause all electronics to be scarce, so much for abundance there)
- 5mo ago
- tim333 5mo agoIf AI works you'll be able to make more stuff with fewer people. While that could lead to unemployment historically it's not gone that way. You get more stuff. Like agricultural employment has gone from ~70% to ~2% but the people who would have dug potatoes make cars, houses, aircraft and the like.
- FloorEgg 5mo agoThe problem isn't AI, the problem is a generation addicted to social media that sells their attention to the highest bidder. How expensive do you think it would be to convince 30 million people of something that wasn't true? Who might benefit from a generation of Americans being pessimistic about their future? More specifically, who might benefit from a generation of Americans being anti-AI? How would the cost compare to the potential benefits?
- singingwolfboy 5mo agohttps://archive.ph/EvzqM https://archive.ph/EvzqM
- fullshark 5mo agoThey are both right, the revolution needs to be oriented for ordinary people and college kids to benefit from it or else their attitude is wholly justified. There's basically no reason for them to cheer on a future of trillion dollar corporations using AI services to battle for knowledge work market share.
- rgbrenner 5mo agowas the industrial revolution oriented for ordinary people at the time it occurred? were a lot of workers buying flying shuttles in the 1700s?
- ForHackernews 5mo agoNo, that's why unions exist.
- hello_moto 5mo agoUnions and worker's rights exist because workers were exploited to the max during the Industrial Revolution.
- ForHackernews 5mo agoyes.
- happytoexplain 5mo agoI'm confused - you're suggesting that past suffering justifies present suffering?
- KK7NIL 5mo agoHe's pointing out that labor has always opposed labor saving technology, despite that being the basis of our modern quality of life.
- ChrisArchitect 5mo agoRelated: The More Young People Use AI, the More They Hate It https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47963163 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47963163 Study found that young adults have grown less hopeful and more angry about AI https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47704443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47704443
- hirvi74 5mo ago[flagged]
- throwway262515 5mo agoHave you also wondered how many of them owe their college degree to the colored worker that prepped their meals?
- hirvi74 5mo agoNo, I have not. I am also unaware of college students booing such oddly specific entity during a commencement speech.
- xantronix 5mo agoMost people in uni have compulsory humanities courses, so I imagine it's not too hard for them to attribute actions by moneyed interests to boost AI to the furtherance of capital, surveillance, and a widening of the economic gap. The fact remains, though, most of these degrees (with the obvious exception of those specific to current AI/LLM technologies) could have been attained without AI before.
- hirvi74 5mo agoSure, I do not disagree in the slightest. However, I think degrees, while optimistically serving as a certification of a certain level of understanding/knowledge, also provide a sort of social signal. However, Goodhart's Law is still in full effect, so that does complicate matters a bit.
- iugtmkbdfil834 5mo agoOwe is an interesting choice of a word. Don't get me wrong, I personally am of the opinion that, by default, most schools for most programs, the related body of works can be accomplished by a warm body ( some of it based on personal anecdotes -- in US mind you ). There are exceptions and those include some non-humanities and, well, people who are curious ( but that was always true for them ). Still, just because a technology facilitates something does not make their distaste any less potent. If anything, they recognize how much of world's building blocks are a fancy facade ( mild alliteration intended ).
- deaux 5mo ago[flagged]
- ryandrake 5mo agoI mean, duh. Do we really think someone with the title of "vice president of strategic alliances at Tavistock Group" lives in the same universe as the rest of us? In her alternative universe, Zucc and Bezos are heroes to look up to. These people have no actual interaction with the rest of us, and just assume their world view is universally held. Look how genuinely surprised she was by the audience's reaction. In their world, AI is an unambiguous good.
- deaux 5mo ago> I mean, duh Clearly people don't consider it obvious, considering my comment got flagged.
- timmytokyo 5mo agoYou blasphemed a few of the patron saints.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago> Meta and Jeff Bezos being held up in a good light The message to a group of graduating artists should have been about the literature, art and public works that turned the Industrial Revolution's hyper-concentrated gains into broadly-felt benefits. (And then, after WWII and the Green Revolution, encouraged us to start reckoning with its environmental cost.) AI is potentially—and with increasing confidence day to day—showing itself to be useful. That deserves neither worship nor demonization. Yet history—told by the humanities!—tell us, it probably hasn’t started in the right leaders’ hands. It is the role of the humanities to show and guide the public through that debate and reconciliation.
- insane_dreamer 5mo ago> literature, art and public works that turned the Industrial Revolution's hyper-concentrated gains into broadly-felt benefits those all played a part to be sure, but it was workers organizing and striking en masse, bringing factories to a halt, battling with private armies or gov troops (and getting killed), and hard-fought progressive campaigns that achieved it no one is willing to do that these days, until it gets much much worse; plus workers don't have the leverage that they did back at that time -- factories still relied on them -- sure you could ship in replacements for striking workers but that required considerable effort. the goal here is not to rely on labor at all, effectively eliminating any leverage that labor has over capital.
- RankingMember 5mo agoRightfully so. Unfettered capitalism will only end with a bunch of rich people producing and selling the means of living to the rest of us at just the right markup to keep their feet on our throats. Organized labor needs a resurgence in a big way.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago> Speaking to graduates of University of Central Florida’s College of Arts and Humanities and Nicholson School of Communication and Media Well, yeah.
- baggachipz 5mo agoRight, read the room. Tell them that "there are challenges ahead, but their excellent education and optimism will overcome even the most ominous obstacles, technological or otherwise."
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago> their excellent education and optimism will overcome even the most ominous obstacles, technological or otherwise Or, alternatively, that we need the humanities today in a fundamental, possibly existential, way. If AI is another Industrial Revolution, rise to be our Sinclairs, Dickens and Tolstoys.
- isege 5mo agoIt's interesting that I'm only seeing this kind of anti-ai tendency only in American/Western art circles. Anywhere else in Middle East/Asia, artists are having fun experimenting with it.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago> I'm only seeing this kind of anti-ai tendency only in American/Western art circles Hmm, how would we measure and confirm this hypothesis?
- CaptainFever 5mo agoIt's been polled. > First reported in the 2023 AI Index, significant regional differences in AI optimism persist. A large majority believe AI-powered products and services offer more benefits than drawbacks in countries like China (83%), Indonesia (80%), and Thailand (77%). In contrast, only a minority share this view in Canada (40%), the United States (39%), and the Netherlands (36%). Source: https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report/public-opinion https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report/publi...
- lsy 5mo agoThere's a very real possibility that AI proponents completely lose the next generation of adults. The output is not enjoyable to consume, the people who rely on it are not cool, and the effects of using it are unpleasant and hard to defend on aesthetic, intellectual, or moral grounds. There are real use cases for this technology! But the idea that the generation of superficially plausible text is "the next Industrial Revolution" comes out of the same mindset that has turned a neat technology into a banal hellscape for consumers and employees. We desperately need some leadership in companies or institutions that can place this technology in its proper context, and leverage it without getting manic about it.
- JohnMakin 5mo agoThey have to frame it this way, because the market has invested in it being "the next internet" kind of event.
- pixel_popping 5mo agoIt's much more than that, it will solve the deepest mysteries of the universe, not now, but in a decade, very likely.
- bogzz 5mo agoYou sound manic.
- timmytokyo 5mo agoOr religious. Or both.
- pixel_popping 5mo agoRealistic? Tell me why I'm wrong at least.
- slowgramming 5mo ago[dead]
- bogzz 5mo ago[flagged]
- ryandrake 5mo agoTimestamp 1:20:50 is about where the clown show starts. Totally out of touch. Her nervous giggling and throwing her hands up when she realizes the audience doesn't think AI is the greatest invention since sliced bread.... Wow. "Passion--let's go!" Lady read the room.
- cdrnsf 5mo agoShe'd make a good CEO of an AI company.
- irishcoffee 5mo agoThat is nauseating to watch, she is an abysmal public speaker, arrogant, extremely uninspiring, and generally very out of touch. I would feel this way if she was reading a review of cat in the hat. Letting this woman speak about AI, what a disaster.
- bogzz 5mo agoYou have to admit though, a very appropriate speaker for new graduates in 2026.
- frb 5mo ago> College of Arts and Humanities and Nicholson School of Communication and Media Somehow I have a feeling that the reaction would have been totally different if it would have been the EECS graduates. Fear and rejection in certain professions is real and maybe even understandable. I imagine 25 years ago someone telling music graduates “streaming is the future of music distribution” would have received the same reaction.
- fnordpiglet 5mo agoI suspect for CS it would have been outright food riots. The humanities are probably the best insulated from AI as the uncanny valley is really obvious in AI literature and art. CS is the final stage in the “programming myself out of a job” meme which is quite depressing if you’re just getting your first job (or, more likely at the moment, not.)
- frb 5mo agoInteresting, it’s not my experience in recent interactions with CS students. There was more positivity around possibilities. However there was a feeling that “the job” is radically changing right now.
- fantasizr 5mo agothis is a classic of the genre "It's not enjoyable to make music anymore” - Suno AI CEO https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vAn7DsXWQGE https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vAn7DsXWQGE
- fantasizr 5mo agothose two lines in the speech with audience boo/applause breaks are perfectly timed.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- sharts 5mo agoAI has been the “next industrial revolution” since the 70’s and 80’s. We’ll have a few more RoboCop movies and then things will be as they always are after hype cycles
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- perarneng 5mo agoGovernments and companies are so bad at selling AI to the population.The reason is the elephant in the room. Everyone or at least most understand the consequences. You can't sit and be amazed at the speed an AI does tasks and not be able to extrapolate what that would mean for jobs.
- smetannik 5mo agoThey're selling it to investors. Population isn't their client.
- olivierestsage 5mo agoIs the practice on this site now to flag anything critical of AI...?
- aeciorc 5mo agoI wonder how many bright people are choosing not to pursue higher education due to the current message around AI, and what the long-term consequences will be.
- deferredgrant 5mo ago[flagged]
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- rsynnott 5mo agoNumber of industrial revolutions: generously, two (though the distinction between the first and second Industrial Revolution is more or less only of interest to historians). Number of things called the next industrial revolution: roughly five billion. (The offending speaker appears to work for a private equity firm that does mostly property stuff, so probably not a leading authority on what is the next Industrial Revolution.)
- tim333 5mo agoAI does potentially upend the main developed world model of spend fifteen plus years in education learning skills and then go employ those in work. If AI can do the skilled stuff it changes the economics.