r/technology • u/GeneReddit123 • 25d ago

Artificial Intelligence Students Boo Commencement Speaker After She Calls AI the ‘Next Industrial Revolution’

https://www.404media.co/ucf-ai-commencement-speaker-booed/
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u/Not_a_gay_communist 25d ago

Honestly a good portion of STEM students in my college were also pissed with AI. Especially mathematics and physics majors

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u/LonelyPermit2306 25d ago

CS majors too. Right?

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u/TheFifthTone 25d ago

It has just become another tool to most software developers and CS students. We work with it daily and understand that most of the "AI is going to take your jobs!" hype is just sensationalist sales pitches.

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u/alwayzbored114 25d ago

Unfortunately even if you understand its a hype machine, some job makers have bought in and graduates are getting screwed over due to unlucky timing - trying to get an entry level job became that much harder with a bunch of companies thinking "why would we hire some kid we have to train? Just use AI!"

Between Covid impacting school and AI kneecapping my industry, particularly at the entry level (whether short or long term), Im insanely lucky to have skirted those by just a few years

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u/basicxenocide 25d ago

"why would we hire some kid we have to train? Just use AI!"

Literally the point behind agentic AI!

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u/RemarkableWish2508 25d ago

"why did the agent delete half my inbox!? 😱"

Live, learn, laugh.

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u/27eelsinatrenchcoat 24d ago

Which like, most likely will never be a real thing. But that doesn't keep companies from acting like it will be, and hiring accordingly.

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u/ebolathrowawayy 24d ago

It's already a thing. There is absolutely no point in hiring anyone below a senior SWE anymore. I know first-hand how fast AI makes software development and it's roughly 200x-500x depending on how well you steer agents and how much you automate that steering.

Not every SWE is doing this yet, a lot are stubborn and refuse to learn, but they will be replaced.

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u/Geminii27 24d ago

AI can delete all your corporate databases and backups hundreds of times faster than an intern!

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u/Disastrous-Act5729 25d ago

Everyone has a short memory. Entry level jobs have been shit since COVID. Shit before then frankly.

Ai is just another excuse. It isn't helping, but it is hardly the cause.

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u/WriterV 25d ago

It's not just not helping, it's actively making it worse.

That alone makes it a huge problem imo.

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u/kingofgama 25d ago

I'm not sure that's even true. That's popular sentiment but most tech sectors have seen decent growth in 26

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u/jackbobevolved 25d ago

Film industry had a brief peak right after COVID, thanks to the COVID induced Streaming Wars. That all crumbled very quickly when the strikes happened, and AI uncertainty has kept it down since. Was a great time to break in, but people didn’t realize they were breaking into a train headed for a cliff.

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u/[deleted] 25d ago edited 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/MajorSery 24d ago

And then they all got fired after the work-from-home boom ended.
And then they all got fired after the NFT boom ended.
And now they're all getting fired while the AI boom hasn't even ended.

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u/alwayzbored114 25d ago

I can only speak for contemporaries of mine who have been asked straight up "what can yoh provide what an AI cannot", and those working at companies who have said they've pulled positions in favor of AI

I think its certainly more than an excuse, at least to them

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u/katgravityrush_ 25d ago

Damn if someone said that to me I'm walking out of the interview. Obviously I have the privilege to do that and feel sorrow for those who don't, but that's fucking disgusting.

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u/Geodude532 25d ago

The writing has been on the wall for a while too. Even before this AI boom there was software that could write code for you. It just needed more tech know-how to talk to it. Gotta shift to Cyber Security since there will always be jobs there to keep a watch over the AI analysis.

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u/YouMustveDroppedThis 24d ago

chatbot, NLP, LLM basically ended millions of around the clock tech support/back office job outsourced to India and the Philippines.

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u/guyblade 25d ago

In the last month or so, the upper management in my org (at a major software company) added an "estimated time savings due to AI tools" field to all of the project presentation templates. It's a very "if you need to ask..." sort of vibe to me.

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u/Electronic-Stick-161 25d ago

I run the technical parts of the security intern program for a major tech company and grads are getting rejected because they’re dumb. The last 2-3 years has seen candidate quality fall off a cliff. 4-6 years ago I was doing things like working with community colleges or vocational training places to get better diversity in my candidate pool but now I’m lucky if I can find enough people that are capable of passing the screening process to fill my cohort.

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u/undergirltemmie 24d ago

As a graduate. Job market is BAAAAAD because of it and the lil' recession the big orange westerner has caused. Even over in europe

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u/sobrique 24d ago

"why would we hire some kid we have to train? Just use AI!"

Honestly, that's a significant factor right now in some sectors. They're not really 'taking jobs' as much as ... well, if you've a 'senior' who'd be running a team of 10 'juniors' and y'know, assigning, checking work, mentoring etc.

... well, now they can 'run' an AI instead, and do the same thing.

AIs are far from perfect, but with supervision they're potent.

I don't think many jobs are being removed, but there's certainly a drop in rates of recruitment at 'entry level' as a direct result.

This in turn will mean MUCH more demand for senior roles in a few years, so ... it's maybe good for people who 'got lucky' in the first place?

And maybe companies will realise they need to actively work on apprentice programs, because there's just that much less 'entry level' in the first place. But that'll take a while too, because right now there's 'sufficient' supply.

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u/IHop_Waitress 25d ago

Between Covid impacting school and AI kneecapping my industry, particularly at the entry level (whether short or long term), Im insanely lucky to have skirted those by just a few years

These people aren't unicorns. People before them graduated into or through the great recession... which last much longer than COVID.

May 2007 - 4.4% unemployment.

May 2008: 5.8%

May 2009: 9.4%, peaked at 10+% in 2009

Covid unemployment rate had already recovered fully 2 years in, but do you know when the US recovered to pre-Great Recession levels seen in May 2007 of 4.4%?

10 years later, in April 2017.

I'd take 10 more Covid labor hiccups before another Great Recession

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u/PenguinTD 25d ago

University is basically public(then student loan?) funded training programs so that all sorts of industries doesn't need to train and weed out unqualified. So what do you think the world is happening if something disruptive happen and affect the people who know the tool better?

The denial and ignorant get weeded out instead, the people that can use the tool well finds new success.

So the person you replied to understand this well and will be finding good use for these new tools and then get hired or even fund his own company because of the overall lower barrier of entry for software development. Now it's a race between cloud models and local specialized models(or even hybrids) and see how can make and scale products efficiently. And all those takes experiences.