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"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 speec

"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)

forgetfreeman 5mo ago
The first step in resolving any problem is acknowledging that it exists. Ignoring real issues in favor of comfortable narratives is insane.
- jerf 5mo ago
  College students had 4+ years to learn about the real issues before the graduation ceremory, and the rest of their lives after it. Rubbing every problem in the world in their face at a graduation ceremony is just gauche. To everything a time and a season. Not every second has to dedicated to "problems".
  - forgetfreeman 5mo ago
    "Not every second has to dedicated to "problems"." I was a lot quicker to agree with this sentiment in prior decades where we had notionally fewer of them, the big ones seemed better understood, and the folks managing the levers of power at least managed the appearance of competence.
    - stvltvs 5mo ago
      This will go over great at weddings and birthday parties! We need to fight for a better world, but that requires that we're not burnt out by thinking about our problems 24/7. We need some fun and joy to make the fight worthwhile.
    - jerf 5mo ago
      There has never been a commencement speech made when the speaker couldn't have spent the entire time speaking about problems. Ever. Not even one. It has always been possible to spin an hour of doom and gloom about the future, based on 100% real problems. A commencement speech is not the time or place for that. I'm not saying it has to be 100% upbeat each time, just that it is not the time or place for an enumeration of problems. It won't even do any good. What are they supposed to do with this that they weren't already doing? It's not like the world was sunshine and rainbows for all of them up to this point and the commencement speech is the correct time to disabuse them of that notion. This isn't your one chance to reach them with news of doom. It's your one chance to send them off and maybe encourage them to fight the doom. It is appalling to miss out on that opportunity because you've got an axe to grind and don't understand that not every opportunity to grind it is appropriate. Actively depressing and discouraging them is almost certainly achieving the opposite of what even you want to achieve.
      - PaulHoule 5mo ago
        I think in this case the speaker was talking about a "solution" which the students perceived as a "problem"
        chadgpt3 5mo ago
        I think the speaker was talking about a "problem" which the speaker perceived as a "solution"
        smallmancontrov 5mo ago
        Yes, and the audience noticed that his solution was a solution to the problem of "how do I multiply my $40B net worth" and not the problem of "AI blasted the job market how do I pay rent?"
        DavidPiper 5mo ago
        Slightly facetiously, but also completely seriously: I thought the speaker was talking about a "solution" that explicitly frames the students as the "problem" - and the students noticed.
    - itsdesmond 5mo ago
      Like I wanna stand here and listen to a tech billionaire run through a list of shit he did to my generation.
    - Imustaskforhelp 5mo ago
      I am a teen, so I want you to consider yourself in the shoes of us youngsters. you grind for 4 years, you might have student debt or a substantial loss of family income as it was invested in your education (I am assuming 30k$) Now the whole purpose of it was to educate you, now some people cheated their way through with AI or whatever in the education system. So the whole thing ends up going to the job market and well the job market isn't doing good. There are multiple (and I mean multiple) factors for the job market to not do good but its not a overexaggeration that people at the top who have influence might be more prone to AI psychosis (Read mitchell's tweet) and how they are all announcing that AI is the reason why you might not have jobs. Then, you have these same people come to you on stage and say to integrate AI or use AI and this AI that AI. What would you as a student do in this? Would you not feel angry, frustrated, would you not disagree and you all don't have a mic and can't cut off that speaker with words. The only thing that you can do to show disagreement is to boo, it takes one kind soul's immense frustration to boo and then everybody would join, would you also not boo if that was the case, to show your disagreement To finally have a voice because their boos had voice larger than many things which is why we are discussing it here and people are discussing it!
      - threethirtytwo 5mo ago
        But at the same time, I cannot disrespect teens by lying to their faces.
      - rolph 5mo ago
        "The only thing that you can do to show disagreement is to boo," thats only if you ban water bottles at such speeches.
      - madnewgrad26 5mo ago
        I just graduated, my friends and I have realized that these older generations are just ladder pullers: they hate us. I’ve watched my classmates politics and outlook become more extreme over time. I don’t think I have any respect for older generations anymore, I was never this jaded before, but my classmates say more extreme stuff.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - gos9 5mo ago
      Mate just because you spend more time staring at a screen wringing your hands doesn’t mean there’s notionally more problems
  - chasd00 5mo ago
    Totally agree, cut the kids a break and give them a pat on the back and tell them something inspiring! Try to remember what it was like to be in their shoes on that day. Edit: I don’t mean “kids” in a condescending way, I just mean young people taking the first steps into adulthood and careers.
  - rolph 5mo ago
    collage students had 4+ years to be gaslit, and redirected from what they were indepedently discovering, toward subservience.
- smallmancontrov 5mo ago
  The "boos" are an indication that kids finally understand who to blame. In a dark time, that's a ray of hope: the kids are alright.
  - hnlmorg 5mo ago
    > the kids finally understand who to blame You do realise that “sticking it to the man” is something that kids are uniquely good at? This isn’t something that’s only just happened in the last generation. It’s how society has operated since before we lived in caves.
    - dragontamer 5mo ago
      The increased younger vote for Trump is a big part of our current set of problems. Remember: Google was declared a monopoly by Bidens Justice department. We were setting up a system to break down monopolies and restore order to the market. Trump got rid of that.
      - hnlmorg 5mo ago
        The problem was Trump marketed himself as being anti-establishment (like many far-right parties do) and people fell for that crap. It’s the same problem time and time again. people conflate regulation with “the establishment” when in fact it’s usually strict rules and processes that prevent us slipping into a dystopian nightmare. But of course people make this mistake because the same people who stand to benefit from deregulation are the ones pouring millions of dollars/pounds/or whatever your local currency into convincing people that the issue was caused by someone else and can only be solved by removing those safe guards we needed.
        watwut 5mo ago
        I dont think so. Trump promissed male supremacy and many men liked it. The move toward Trump is in men specifically. If it was about establishement, women would move the same way. Trump also promissed that it will be ok to mistreat some groups and people who hated one of those groups loved the message - sometimes even when they were members of some of those groups. But, the young voters moving to Trump was male thing and 100% based on misogyny and male supremacy.
- throwaway7t4h7 5mo ago
  "We're all trying to find the guy who did this" - guy dressed like hotdog
- RIMR 5mo ago
  Okay, show me where these commencement speakers are acknowledging that AI is a problem.
- ceejayoz 5mo ago
  Commencement is a time of celebration and accomplishment. The students are well aware of the existence of the problem; that's the exact reason they're booing. It's like going into your therapist's office and having them trauma-dump on you. Their issues might be entirely legitimate; it's still not the time or place. For comparison, see Mr. Rogers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=907yEkALaAY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=907yEkALaAY
- saghm 5mo ago
  > Some of the loudest hostile voices were reserved for Schmidt’s comments on AI, however. “You can now assemble a team of AI agents to help you with the parts you could never accomplish on your own,” comparing it to a “seat on a rocket ship.” He also suggested that the students will be the ones to “shape artificial intelligence,” even if they “don’t care about science… because AI is gonna touch everything else as well.” The Google CEO claiming he and other tech billionaires gave you a seat on a rocket ship via AI is not "acknowledging a problem". Booing something you consider a problem is a form of acknowledgment though, so I'm not sure how you can conclude that the speaker was the one doing what you suggested and not the audience here. Do you really think "AI is like a ride on a rocket ship" is an acknowledgment of issues rather than a "comfortable narrative"?
- BigTTYGothGF 5mo ago
  How come the problem isn't that "lots of people really don't like AI"?
motbus3 5mo ago
i think we should not think they are gullible but they want to make they think they are. they want a message through and the message is that they are creating a threat and they will use it.
palmotea 5mo ago
> Perfect, that's exactly the message of despair we want to send! (How I imagine picking these speakers goes at every college campus) AI-era commencement speeches should totally be gloating "Ha, ha! I'm going to get immensely rich, and most of you fools are going to end up in the gutter! Sucks to be you [sticks out tongue]! Great for me, me, me! AI. Is. Awesome."
InsideOutSanta 5mo ago
I bet "deal with it" is exactly the kind of inspiring message these kids were hoping to hear.
- ath3nd 5mo ago
  They will deal with it alright. It's only so many speeches like this before the boos turn into other things.
  - madnewgrad26 5mo ago
    Absolutely. They have no idea the vitriol my classmates have for them. I really am worried, lot of friends are very casual about their extremism. When anger and disgust is the feeling of the majority: it’s only a matter of time…
    - ath3nd 5mo ago
      [dead]
- mplanchard 5mo ago
  Your comment really drove home for me the lack of empathy and humanity in these speeches, even neglecting the AI stuff. These young people are celebrating a real accomplishment and a life milestone. They’re about to enter a world where their decisions will shape our society. In that context, a speech like this is just gauche.
ryandrake 5mo ago
None of these people even had to mention AI in their speeches. They could have just done the normal, generic "Dream big, believe in yourself, attaboy" kind of speech and then gone back to their 3rd homes in Malibu. But no, they just had to both mention it AND rub everyone's noses in it. They know they've already won, and are arrogantly making sure the next generation doesn't forget who's meant to be on the lower rungs of the social and economic totem pole. Either that, or they actually think that everyone shares their positive outlook on AI and have totally failed to read the room.
- breadsniffer 5mo ago
  They’re so disconnected from reality, living in their own bubble.
- IncreasePosts 5mo ago
  I don't know if you're aware but a big meme at Google from when Eric was CEO was when he was encouraging all googlers to install Nest in "one of your homes"
- tavavex 5mo ago
  Their behaviors feel so detached and alien to me. Here are my hypotheses: - They love AI and are so self-absorbed that they struggle to think of other people's perspectives. They only view it through their own lens and are oblivious to it. So, to them, others' opinions should mirror theirs, which is why it doesn't register for them. - They know of the impacts their ideas will have, but think that the positives will somehow eventually trickle down to the commoners and the negatives will be minimized or only affect people that 'deserve it'. - They genuinely despise young people and this is just a socially acceptable way of expressing their hatred - they understand everything. Which one of the three do you think it is? Or are there other reasons?
  - ryandrake 5mo ago
    If I had to guess, I'd say it's a non-zero, but double-digit percentage of each of those, depending on the person.
saghm 5mo ago
For what it's worth, this might not be a recent phenomenon only. My dad has been saying for decades that the speaker at my mom's college graduation (Paul Tsongas, if I'm remembering correctly) was incredibly depressing and basically just said "the world sucks out there, good luck going into it".
- gowld 5mo ago
  Mine was "The world sucks. We need brilliant people like you to save it. Please help."
  - RobRivera 5mo ago
    In nyc, elder rats have been known to encourage younger rats to take the first bite, to determine if the food is poisoned
  - jakeydus 5mo ago
    That was the gist of mine as well. "There are too many problems and too few people who care. So please care, and don't let the size of the problems keep you from caring."
    - cratermoon 5mo ago
      “And don’t get distracted by money, fame, and power like I did.”
threethirtytwo 5mo ago
what do people need to hear? inspiration or truth? Personally I want the cold awful truth. But I think humanity in general thrives on inspiration and delusion.
- vanviegen 5mo ago
  Cold awful truth is fine, but people do need some perspective.
- watwut 5mo ago
  What people need and should hear depends on the situation. When you visit a dentist, you don't need to hear about how to properly build a house, no matter how truthful it is. You should hear truth about state of your teeth. Or, if you are having a wedding speech, you should not pontificate about how to keep the bathroom clean - even if what you say is cold hard truth. Second and importantly, it is not like these commencement speakers would be concerned with truth or were trying to convey truth in their speeches. The dilemma here is not "truth versus inspiration/delusion". Schmidt was not selling truth, he was selling his product and was trying to make people believe things that will make him earn more. Schmidt want trying to sell inspiring vision of the world for the students, he effectively put them into a passive-you-dont-matter role in his vision.
- hackable_sand 5mo ago
  The truth cannot be either cold nor awful. It appears you prefer dressing up your feelings in stoicist aesthetics. Like a snake pretending to be a statue.
- amanaplanacanal 5mo ago
  What they should be saying is "yes this new technology is going to take away all your jobs, which is why I am fighting for universal basic income".

forgetfreeman 5mo ago

The first step in resolving any problem is acknowledging that it exists. Ignoring real issues in favor of comfortable narratives is insane.

jerf 5mo ago
College students had 4+ years to learn about the real issues before the graduation ceremory, and the rest of their lives after it. Rubbing every problem in the world in their face at a graduation ceremony is just gauche. To everything a time and a season. Not every second has to dedicated to "problems".
- forgetfreeman 5mo ago
  "Not every second has to dedicated to "problems"." I was a lot quicker to agree with this sentiment in prior decades where we had notionally fewer of them, the big ones seemed better understood, and the folks managing the levers of power at least managed the appearance of competence.
  - stvltvs 5mo ago
    This will go over great at weddings and birthday parties! We need to fight for a better world, but that requires that we're not burnt out by thinking about our problems 24/7. We need some fun and joy to make the fight worthwhile.
  - jerf 5mo ago
    There has never been a commencement speech made when the speaker couldn't have spent the entire time speaking about problems. Ever. Not even one. It has always been possible to spin an hour of doom and gloom about the future, based on 100% real problems. A commencement speech is not the time or place for that. I'm not saying it has to be 100% upbeat each time, just that it is not the time or place for an enumeration of problems. It won't even do any good. What are they supposed to do with this that they weren't already doing? It's not like the world was sunshine and rainbows for all of them up to this point and the commencement speech is the correct time to disabuse them of that notion. This isn't your one chance to reach them with news of doom. It's your one chance to send them off and maybe encourage them to fight the doom. It is appalling to miss out on that opportunity because you've got an axe to grind and don't understand that not every opportunity to grind it is appropriate. Actively depressing and discouraging them is almost certainly achieving the opposite of what even you want to achieve.
    - PaulHoule 5mo ago
      I think in this case the speaker was talking about a "solution" which the students perceived as a "problem"
      - chadgpt3 5mo ago
        I think the speaker was talking about a "problem" which the speaker perceived as a "solution"
        smallmancontrov 5mo ago
        Yes, and the audience noticed that his solution was a solution to the problem of "how do I multiply my $40B net worth" and not the problem of "AI blasted the job market how do I pay rent?"
      - DavidPiper 5mo ago
        Slightly facetiously, but also completely seriously: I thought the speaker was talking about a "solution" that explicitly frames the students as the "problem" - and the students noticed.
  - itsdesmond 5mo ago
    Like I wanna stand here and listen to a tech billionaire run through a list of shit he did to my generation.
  - Imustaskforhelp 5mo ago
    I am a teen, so I want you to consider yourself in the shoes of us youngsters. you grind for 4 years, you might have student debt or a substantial loss of family income as it was invested in your education (I am assuming 30k$) Now the whole purpose of it was to educate you, now some people cheated their way through with AI or whatever in the education system. So the whole thing ends up going to the job market and well the job market isn't doing good. There are multiple (and I mean multiple) factors for the job market to not do good but its not a overexaggeration that people at the top who have influence might be more prone to AI psychosis (Read mitchell's tweet) and how they are all announcing that AI is the reason why you might not have jobs. Then, you have these same people come to you on stage and say to integrate AI or use AI and this AI that AI. What would you as a student do in this? Would you not feel angry, frustrated, would you not disagree and you all don't have a mic and can't cut off that speaker with words. The only thing that you can do to show disagreement is to boo, it takes one kind soul's immense frustration to boo and then everybody would join, would you also not boo if that was the case, to show your disagreement To finally have a voice because their boos had voice larger than many things which is why we are discussing it here and people are discussing it!
    - threethirtytwo 5mo ago
      But at the same time, I cannot disrespect teens by lying to their faces.
    - rolph 5mo ago
      "The only thing that you can do to show disagreement is to boo," thats only if you ban water bottles at such speeches.
    - madnewgrad26 5mo ago
      I just graduated, my friends and I have realized that these older generations are just ladder pullers: they hate us. I’ve watched my classmates politics and outlook become more extreme over time. I don’t think I have any respect for older generations anymore, I was never this jaded before, but my classmates say more extreme stuff.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - gos9 5mo ago
    Mate just because you spend more time staring at a screen wringing your hands doesn’t mean there’s notionally more problems
- chasd00 5mo ago
  Totally agree, cut the kids a break and give them a pat on the back and tell them something inspiring! Try to remember what it was like to be in their shoes on that day. Edit: I don’t mean “kids” in a condescending way, I just mean young people taking the first steps into adulthood and careers.
- rolph 5mo ago
  collage students had 4+ years to be gaslit, and redirected from what they were indepedently discovering, toward subservience.
smallmancontrov 5mo ago
The "boos" are an indication that kids finally understand who to blame. In a dark time, that's a ray of hope: the kids are alright.
- hnlmorg 5mo ago
  > the kids finally understand who to blame You do realise that “sticking it to the man” is something that kids are uniquely good at? This isn’t something that’s only just happened in the last generation. It’s how society has operated since before we lived in caves.
  - dragontamer 5mo ago
    The increased younger vote for Trump is a big part of our current set of problems. Remember: Google was declared a monopoly by Bidens Justice department. We were setting up a system to break down monopolies and restore order to the market. Trump got rid of that.
    - hnlmorg 5mo ago
      The problem was Trump marketed himself as being anti-establishment (like many far-right parties do) and people fell for that crap. It’s the same problem time and time again. people conflate regulation with “the establishment” when in fact it’s usually strict rules and processes that prevent us slipping into a dystopian nightmare. But of course people make this mistake because the same people who stand to benefit from deregulation are the ones pouring millions of dollars/pounds/or whatever your local currency into convincing people that the issue was caused by someone else and can only be solved by removing those safe guards we needed.
      - watwut 5mo ago
        I dont think so. Trump promissed male supremacy and many men liked it. The move toward Trump is in men specifically. If it was about establishement, women would move the same way. Trump also promissed that it will be ok to mistreat some groups and people who hated one of those groups loved the message - sometimes even when they were members of some of those groups. But, the young voters moving to Trump was male thing and 100% based on misogyny and male supremacy.
throwaway7t4h7 5mo ago
"We're all trying to find the guy who did this" - guy dressed like hotdog
RIMR 5mo ago
Okay, show me where these commencement speakers are acknowledging that AI is a problem.
ceejayoz 5mo ago
Commencement is a time of celebration and accomplishment. The students are well aware of the existence of the problem; that's the exact reason they're booing. It's like going into your therapist's office and having them trauma-dump on you. Their issues might be entirely legitimate; it's still not the time or place. For comparison, see Mr. Rogers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=907yEkALaAY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=907yEkALaAY
saghm 5mo ago
> Some of the loudest hostile voices were reserved for Schmidt’s comments on AI, however. “You can now assemble a team of AI agents to help you with the parts you could never accomplish on your own,” comparing it to a “seat on a rocket ship.” He also suggested that the students will be the ones to “shape artificial intelligence,” even if they “don’t care about science… because AI is gonna touch everything else as well.” The Google CEO claiming he and other tech billionaires gave you a seat on a rocket ship via AI is not "acknowledging a problem". Booing something you consider a problem is a form of acknowledgment though, so I'm not sure how you can conclude that the speaker was the one doing what you suggested and not the audience here. Do you really think "AI is like a ride on a rocket ship" is an acknowledgment of issues rather than a "comfortable narrative"?
BigTTYGothGF 5mo ago
How come the problem isn't that "lots of people really don't like AI"?

motbus3 5mo ago

i think we should not think they are gullible but they want to make they think they are. they want a message through and the message is that they are creating a threat and they will use it.

palmotea 5mo ago

> Perfect, that's exactly the message of despair we want to send! (How I imagine picking these speakers goes at every college campus) AI-era commencement speeches should totally be gloating "Ha, ha! I'm going to get immensely rich, and most of you fools are going to end up in the gutter! Sucks to be you [sticks out tongue]! Great for me, me, me! AI. Is. Awesome."

InsideOutSanta 5mo ago

I bet "deal with it" is exactly the kind of inspiring message these kids were hoping to hear.

ath3nd 5mo ago
They will deal with it alright. It's only so many speeches like this before the boos turn into other things.
- madnewgrad26 5mo ago
  Absolutely. They have no idea the vitriol my classmates have for them. I really am worried, lot of friends are very casual about their extremism. When anger and disgust is the feeling of the majority: it’s only a matter of time…
  - ath3nd 5mo ago
    [dead]
mplanchard 5mo ago
Your comment really drove home for me the lack of empathy and humanity in these speeches, even neglecting the AI stuff. These young people are celebrating a real accomplishment and a life milestone. They’re about to enter a world where their decisions will shape our society. In that context, a speech like this is just gauche.

ryandrake 5mo ago

None of these people even had to mention AI in their speeches. They could have just done the normal, generic "Dream big, believe in yourself, attaboy" kind of speech and then gone back to their 3rd homes in Malibu. But no, they just had to both mention it AND rub everyone's noses in it. They know they've already won, and are arrogantly making sure the next generation doesn't forget who's meant to be on the lower rungs of the social and economic totem pole. Either that, or they actually think that everyone shares their positive outlook on AI and have totally failed to read the room.

breadsniffer 5mo ago
They’re so disconnected from reality, living in their own bubble.
IncreasePosts 5mo ago
I don't know if you're aware but a big meme at Google from when Eric was CEO was when he was encouraging all googlers to install Nest in "one of your homes"
tavavex 5mo ago
Their behaviors feel so detached and alien to me. Here are my hypotheses: - They love AI and are so self-absorbed that they struggle to think of other people's perspectives. They only view it through their own lens and are oblivious to it. So, to them, others' opinions should mirror theirs, which is why it doesn't register for them. - They know of the impacts their ideas will have, but think that the positives will somehow eventually trickle down to the commoners and the negatives will be minimized or only affect people that 'deserve it'. - They genuinely despise young people and this is just a socially acceptable way of expressing their hatred - they understand everything. Which one of the three do you think it is? Or are there other reasons?
- ryandrake 5mo ago
  If I had to guess, I'd say it's a non-zero, but double-digit percentage of each of those, depending on the person.

saghm 5mo ago

For what it's worth, this might not be a recent phenomenon only. My dad has been saying for decades that the speaker at my mom's college graduation (Paul Tsongas, if I'm remembering correctly) was incredibly depressing and basically just said "the world sucks out there, good luck going into it".

gowld 5mo ago
Mine was "The world sucks. We need brilliant people like you to save it. Please help."
- RobRivera 5mo ago
  In nyc, elder rats have been known to encourage younger rats to take the first bite, to determine if the food is poisoned
- jakeydus 5mo ago
  That was the gist of mine as well. "There are too many problems and too few people who care. So please care, and don't let the size of the problems keep you from caring."
  - cratermoon 5mo ago
    “And don’t get distracted by money, fame, and power like I did.”

threethirtytwo 5mo ago

what do people need to hear? inspiration or truth? Personally I want the cold awful truth. But I think humanity in general thrives on inspiration and delusion.

vanviegen 5mo ago
Cold awful truth is fine, but people do need some perspective.
watwut 5mo ago
What people need and should hear depends on the situation. When you visit a dentist, you don't need to hear about how to properly build a house, no matter how truthful it is. You should hear truth about state of your teeth. Or, if you are having a wedding speech, you should not pontificate about how to keep the bathroom clean - even if what you say is cold hard truth. Second and importantly, it is not like these commencement speakers would be concerned with truth or were trying to convey truth in their speeches. The dilemma here is not "truth versus inspiration/delusion". Schmidt was not selling truth, he was selling his product and was trying to make people believe things that will make him earn more. Schmidt want trying to sell inspiring vision of the world for the students, he effectively put them into a passive-you-dont-matter role in his vision.
hackable_sand 5mo ago
The truth cannot be either cold nor awful. It appears you prefer dressing up your feelings in stoicist aesthetics. Like a snake pretending to be a statue.
amanaplanacanal 5mo ago
What they should be saying is "yes this new technology is going to take away all your jobs, which is why I am fighting for universal basic income".