Here is a sentence I never thought I would write: I am kind of looking forward to this year’s graduation ceremonies. As parents of 10 children, my husband and I have attended a lot of these events, and they are almost uniformly tedious, clichéd and very close to pointless.
But this year, a theme is emerging: Commencement speakers are talking about artificial intelligence changing the world—and the graduates are booing them. I guess it is perverse, but part of me hopes we catch some of the action. Those boos give me hope for the future.
In one clip, the vice president of a tech company is thoroughly taken aback to discover that young adults graduating from the University of Central Florida are not super excited to welcome the approaching tsunami of A.I. “The rise of artificial intelligence is the next Industrial Revolution,” she says, and the graduates respond with an unmistakably hostile roar. “Oh! What happened? I struck a chord! May I finish?,” she responds, giggling nervously. They do not let her finish; they interrupt her repeatedly as she gets more and more flustered but sticks to her script.
At another ceremony, Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive officer of Google, seems more prepared for the boos that greet his praise of A.I., but he ascribes the crowd’s hostility entirely to fear. He offers his often-repeated advice: “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.” When the graduates don’t seem to like that, he appears irritated, even contemptuous.
3 thoughts on “Booing AI is a good start. What’s next?”
Oh, and BTW I totally understand why the encyclical was not quite the thing your kids wanted to get their teeth into. I’ve started reading it, it’s really good and challenging and practical. As an adult, I can appreciate it; I doubt it would even have woken me from my slumber as a teen or young adult. I’ve been reading your blog for years and I from what you write I have the strong impression that you’ve given your kids both roots and wings. What more can you do? They might just enjoy their wings and fly somersaults in the air for a while, but at some point they are very likely to revisit the roots you’ve given them. It’s probably what we all hope for, as parents. But it is no longer our call to make.
AI is here to stay. Eventually, it will take many of the entry level jobs for which these kids have trained. That’s why the kids are booing it. Their parents are booing it because they want their kids gainfully employed and they don’t want the data centers in their communities. King of Prussia, PA (right outside Philadelphia) is talking about adding *8* of them. Yikes!!
Several members of my family are heavily involved with creating and evaluating AI policies in their work places so I’ve had a front seat to many interesting discussions. A few months ago, AI was pretty clearly used to write a Supreme Court Justice’s dissent. More recently, a white shoe law firm filed an emergency motion with fake court case citations, a sure sign AI was used in the writing of it. But these are the early iterations of AI. Eventually, many of the telltale bugs will be worked out.
I would be lying if I didn’t admit AI makes a lot of things easier. Although I use it every day for little things, I recently used it to help write some parody songs for a family member’s milestone birthday celebration. It did a decent job. I had to make a few tweaks, but a job that normally would’ve taken me several days was done in about 3 hours. My husband and kids use it for more consequential tasks. They often tell me how much time it saves them. I’m worried AI is making us all stupid and when the grid goes down we’ll all end up living in caves with no ability or knowledge to start rebuilding civilization.
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Oh, and BTW I totally understand why the encyclical was not quite the thing your kids wanted to get their teeth into. I’ve started reading it, it’s really good and challenging and practical. As an adult, I can appreciate it; I doubt it would even have woken me from my slumber as a teen or young adult. I’ve been reading your blog for years and I from what you write I have the strong impression that you’ve given your kids both roots and wings. What more can you do? They might just enjoy their wings and fly somersaults in the air for a while, but at some point they are very likely to revisit the roots you’ve given them. It’s probably what we all hope for, as parents. But it is no longer our call to make.
AI is here to stay. Eventually, it will take many of the entry level jobs for which these kids have trained. That’s why the kids are booing it. Their parents are booing it because they want their kids gainfully employed and they don’t want the data centers in their communities. King of Prussia, PA (right outside Philadelphia) is talking about adding *8* of them. Yikes!!
Several members of my family are heavily involved with creating and evaluating AI policies in their work places so I’ve had a front seat to many interesting discussions. A few months ago, AI was pretty clearly used to write a Supreme Court Justice’s dissent. More recently, a white shoe law firm filed an emergency motion with fake court case citations, a sure sign AI was used in the writing of it. But these are the early iterations of AI. Eventually, many of the telltale bugs will be worked out.
I would be lying if I didn’t admit AI makes a lot of things easier. Although I use it every day for little things, I recently used it to help write some parody songs for a family member’s milestone birthday celebration. It did a decent job. I had to make a few tweaks, but a job that normally would’ve taken me several days was done in about 3 hours. My husband and kids use it for more consequential tasks. They often tell me how much time it saves them. I’m worried AI is making us all stupid and when the grid goes down we’ll all end up living in caves with no ability or knowledge to start rebuilding civilization.
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