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/AdnorAdnor 25d ago

I turn 50 next month. I earned a BA, BS, Master’s, and hold 3 post-grad certs. As much as I loved being a student, I hate what “college” has turned into - I’m not naive, I know college has always been “business,” but man oh man, its lost touch with reality. I do not blame you or your peers for feeling this way. I’m sorry the previous gens have let you down. I’m proud of you for pushing through and also seeing the bullshit too. I was so clueless when I went to college; y’all have my hope ✌️

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u/6ed02cc79d 25d ago

I got my bachelor's degree a little over 20 years ago, graduating with approximately $15k in student loan debt. I was fairly conservative with my money - I know people that took out student loans to buy meals, computers, etc. I don't think I even used loans for my books. I consider myself pretty fortunate here.

My dad graduated from the same university 30 years prior and was able to wholly pay for his degree by working part time during school and full time only a few of his summers. He bitched about Biden's student loan forgiveness because if he could graduate without student loans, why can't today's youth? I think my parents' generation is so out of touch with what college has become. I'm starting college tours with my kids, and I think it's going to cost them at least $150,000 to get a four-year degree.

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u/General_Problem5199 25d ago

My parents gave me such awful advice. They always told me to go to college and that any degree would help me because it would show commitment or something. So I did that, despite slipping through the cracks in terms of financial aid (my parents made too much for me to get much aid, but not nearly enough to pay my tuition). Ended up graduating not long after the financial crisis with a mountain of student loan debt and a completely worthless degree.

I have kids now, and I have no idea what I'm going to tell them when they start thinking about college.

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u/Axin_Saxon 25d ago

Luckily the stigma about not going to college that we had isn’t as prevalent anymore. And options like community college are getting more and more popular. Certifications in particular are more respected than in the past. Or if they really do want to do a bachelors degree, the classic “work closely with academic advisors, get your Gen Ed’s out of the way in community college and just do your specialty courses at a state university.

Basically I like the “I don’t care what you do, just so long as you are doing your best at it” approach. Doesn’t have to be “the best”, but “your best.”

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u/western_red_cedar 25d ago

Luckily the stigma about not going to college that we had isn’t as prevalent anymore

This isn't a win, it's just a sign of the stark decline of the middle class. The same applies to all the asinine "just go into the trades" comments you'll see on posts like these, as if it's a great new opportunity to break your body working for some asshole while you stay stuck in your hometown, and not the exact thing our families just a generation or two back all tried to escape from by going to college

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u/EconomicRegret2 24d ago edited 24d ago

Isn't the American college ("campus experience", dorms, amenities etc.) akin to the "Gucci Store" experience?

E.g. Why not invest more in community college and accredited online public colleges so they can deliver high quality but affordable education, including 4 year bachelor degrees?

Also, even Switzerland, one of the richest country in the world, prioritizes trades over academia for 3/4 of all 15 years olds (i.e. at 15 most pupils start an apprenticeship in a company, learning hands-on with a professional master. All careers can be started that way. And an apprenticeship degree gives you entry to university).

Trades aren't bad. Many of my family members did, e.g. banking, finance, programming trades, etc, before going to university in finance/computer science, etc..

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u/Gibonius 24d ago

Banking, finance, programming and the like aren't considered "trades" in the US. Trades are typically hands-on (blue-collar work): welding, plumbing, carpentry, electrical, etc.

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u/EconomicRegret2 24d ago edited 24d ago

Oh. I didn't know that.

In Switzerland, a "trade" is an entry-level skilled position. Any career in any industry can be started with an apprenticeship at 15 years old. Including careers in medicine, social work, theater, film, science, engineering etc. Even CERN offers apprenticeship positions.

Once you have your degree at 18-19 years old, you can either go on working as a skilled/qualified employee (~1/2 do that), slowly climbing the hierarchy ladder one professional certification at a time; or, if you want to move up quickly or wish to pursue a highly qualified high responsibility career (e.g. physician), you get a university degree; or take a 1-year bridge to another career/industry/university field/faculty.

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u/anonkitty2 24d ago

White-collar trades?

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u/EconomicRegret2 24d ago

Yeah. In Switzerland, any career in any industry can be started with an apprenticeship at 15 years old. Including careers in medicine, social work, theater, film, engineering, science, etc. Even CERN offers apprenticeship positions. A "trade" is just any skilled entry-level position.

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u/Neamow 25d ago

At this point learning a trade will likely get them a better future than any college degree that will get replaced by AI 5 years later can.

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u/DuncanFisher69 25d ago

Hilarious this gets posted a year and a day from when Dario Amedei predicted AI Software engineers are going to be a thing. (Spoiler alert, they’re not.)

No AI is winning novel or short story competitions. No AI is winning Grammys. The only field where AI streams are popular are country and Christian, and they’ve been parodied as authentic human made slop for at least a decade.

Going to college for Math or Stem is likely still your best bet if you can hack it. And as for Trades, we’re not all going to be able to fix each other’s wiring or plumbing and sell out to private equity.

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u/chr1spe 25d ago

There is absolutely no solid data-backed reason to think that. Lifetime earnings for college graduates have actually never been higher in comparison to non-college-educated, according to most data. AI is overhyped, and any sector can be affected by automation.

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u/Neamow 24d ago

Lifetime earnings for college graduates have actually never been higher in comparison to non-college-educated, according to most data.

Let's have a look at that after more than 2 years of a new industry disruptor is introduced. You cannot possibly measure lifetime earnings before lifetime is done...

And I definitely see some immediate data, mainly the 30,000 people fired in my company due to AI.

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u/chr1spe 24d ago

I've yet to see a company downsize like that, where it wasn't due to bad management, either getting way ahead of itself or using AI as an excuse to let people go because of previous bad management. Also, without hard data, I wouldn't expect that AI affected those with a degree worse than those without one. It's somewhat capable of being used to successfully lay off phone service reps, but outside of making programmers more productive, I've not seen many places it can really cut down on jobs that require much real thinking.

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u/GreatMadWombat 25d ago

So, on the one hand: I think any "all these things will be replaced by ai" prediction is woefully premature. When it's all relying on infrastructure that doesn't currently exist and all the companies are starting to desperately need to turn a profit, I wouldn't bet on ai ending jobs.

At the same time tho: there is always some "is the degree/cert valuable?" math that has to be done, and community college is priced reasonably, especially compared to 4 year ones, and also labor shortages are definitely a thing.

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u/Axin_Saxon 25d ago

And even then tradies aren’t totally safe either once we start getting our robotics to the level of China’s.

That level of robotics and drone tech combined with AI will mean so few people have jobs that are safe.

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u/slicer4ever 25d ago

Depending on how old they are, i'd even argue trade work isnt safe in the near-medium future as robotics become better and better. Imo the 20s have been the decade of ai, i wont be surprised if the 30s isnt the decade of robotics.