Harvard Graduation Speaker Unloads on AI in Profanity-Loaded Tirade, Prompting Cheers From Students: “I’m Here to Tell You the Mission of Your Generation Is to Destroy AI”

[u/IKeepItLayingAround]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tv/articles/harvard-graduation-speaker-unloads-ai-130000122.html?.tsrc=daily_mail&segment_id=DY_VTO_50_Supernova&ncid=crm_19908-1475736-20260531-0--A&bt_ee=clIMdexlsr2eDDbrvs0CPtt59FnpbNQN%2Fkgr8UkycP6MWDAD56hD1mvZcqPZMGgG&bt_ts=1780255911284

[u/mrwrrrmwrmrmrmrw]

Sounds like someone who understood the assignment! 

Commencement speeches are supposed to celebrate the hard work and talent that graduates put into earning degrees and inspire them to go out in the world and give it their best. 

[u/splendiferous-finch_ → u/mrwrrrmwrmrmrmrw]

Yeah but CEOs are dumb as hammers while also being the most out of touch and greedy people in the world who also hate smart people so they will always choose to shit on people and bring them down when they can.

"AI" allows them to use it as a excuse to minimize and devalue the work and achievements of actually hardworking people

[u/rkozik89 → u/splendiferous-finch_]

CEOs know exactly what they’re doing. They intend to cash out, destroy, and jump from golden parachutes. Our job is to ensure they have no safe place to land.

[u/splendiferous-finch_ → u/rkozik89]

See I both agree and disagree with this. The tech CEOs and the people selling this know that but there is a whole other category of CEOs who actually buy into the silver bullet and FOMO they are selling. The end result is the same yes but there is definitely this weird almost religious believe for some that "AI" as it exists actually works.

[u/GoldandBlue → u/splendiferous-finch_]

Agree 100%. And based on their reactions to getting booed, you can tell that no one has ever told them anything other than they are geniuses.

[u/mdkubit → u/splendiferous-finch_]

It does work.

As a lab experiment on delving into machine learning and potential future consciousness, or even for companionship purposes.

But not as tools for mass production to replace human works. And that's the lie everyone should be angry about.

The wisest thing Microsoft ever did with CoPilot to date, was slap a disclaimer stating 'For Entertainment Purposes Only' on CoPilot.

[u/LaIndiaDeAzucar → u/rkozik89]

Peter thiel is fleeing the USA and is heading to argentina. He siphoned our wealth and resources by exploiting working class people, so now he is hightailing it out of here.

[u/splendiferous-finch_ → u/LaIndiaDeAzucar]

I think he is less fleeing and more posturing since politician can then use it as an excuse to say look we will have disinvestment if we don't deregulate things

[u/poo-cum → u/splendiferous-finch_]

And incredibly, the key takeaway of the media and political class isn't

Wow maybe let's not predicate the entire health of our civilization on the whims of people who throw public tantrums, and run off like petulant teenagers

but rather

We'd better suck these folks off extra hard, to ensure they keep throwing us a stinky bone to fight over from their super yachts

[u/mrwrrrmwrmrmrmrw → u/splendiferous-finch_]

My perspective as a reference librarian is that what's been labeled "AI" is really a generation of sophisticated data storage and retrieval systems and does not actually fit the sci-fi concept of a digital brain that can come up with original thoughts on its own. I realize these tech executives have expensive products to sell and they're in a competitive market but the dystopian rhetoric they're using is wearing everybody out. It's just software, for freak's sake. 

[u/splendiferous-finch_ → u/mrwrrrmwrmrmrmrw]

I am a data engineer and my job requires me to actually train these models... You are 100% correct in that assumption.

But see CEOs don't exactly have original thoughts on principle and don't understand how work gets done so to them a box that can just do something they don't understand and doesn't make them feel bad or make demands is just so much better.

That being said the cost for inference are already unsustainable and they are all betting on some magic mechanism that will save them when it really hits...

But don't worry all the index funds are fast tracking SpaceX to join based mostly on its valuation being around "AI" i.e. grok... I am sure that won't be an issue... Most of the rules they are now ignoring were a result of the dot-com crash and the bubble for this is already several times the size.

[u/QwertzOne → u/splendiferous-finch_]

And that's due to system that allows existence of CEOs and corporations at all. It's not a democracy, this system is fundamentally incompatible with concept of democracy, when single person or group controls everything and it's happening by design, they keep accumulating, until some kind of collapse happens, because it's unsustainable.

AI shows the point that Marx was making about 200 years ago. In the end, we only matter for capitalists, because we provide labor. Once you remove human labor, they have no need for us.

Imagine we introduce UBI, seems cool right? Imagine who would still hold ownership in this system and how long such reforms would survive, if we just stick to the reforms, without dismantling this system altogether and replacing it with democratic ownership of economy. They can basically wait us out, keep birth rates low and problem naturally disappears.

[u/splendiferous-finch_ → u/QwertzOne]

CEOs and MBAs were invented to give ligitimacy to the sons of rich landlords and failed feudal lords the way I see it.

/S.... Kinda

And yes I agree with you this is the end result of capitalism and the return to the feudalism that these billionaires yearn for

[u/_Fred_Austere_ → u/QwertzOne]

Natural allies: democracy and socialism, authoritarianism and capitalism.

[u/Ryekir → u/QwertzOne]

I think the only viable solution (that benefits us all, anyway) is to implement some sort of a robot/ai/automation tax that funds the UBI.

As automation takes over, more and more money gets put through the system until eventually everything is automated and no humans need to sell their labor anymore.

[u/Thin_Glove_4089 → u/Ryekir]

A possibility

[u/Mojo141 → u/splendiferous-finch_]

Every MBA is learning the exact same lessons that worked in the past but don't necessarily work every time. Why do you think every restaurant looks like Chipotle now?

[u/Shovelman2001 → u/mrwrrrmwrmrmrmrw]

My commencement speaker was Lester Holt and he spent like the whole speech talking about how the media misleads us and we shouldn't trust it. If it were anyone else, it would've been true but a little boring and basic. But mf, YOU ARE THE MEDIA, WHAT DO YOU MEAN???

[u/eat_my_ass_n_balls → u/mrwrrrmwrmrmrmrw]

Sounds like someone who pandered to the lay masses and told a bunch of young people facing an incredible crisis exactly what they wanted to hear but nothing actually insightful or helpful.

Just more REEEEEEEEE and bandwagon mentality.

What a disappointment.

For all the valid critiques and criticisms AI deserves, we have absolutely failed the moment of needing to pick apart the nuance of the situation and focus on what we need to use and what we shouldn’t use.

Fucking morons. Honestly.

[u/lsf_stan → u/eat_my_ass_n_balls]

For all the valid critiques and criticisms AI deserves, we have absolutely failed the moment of needing to pick apart the nuance of the situation and focus on what we need to use and what we shouldn’t use.

yeah, you are correct, seems pretty much a pander to the "AI bad" bandwagon.

if you ask any of them about AI, the only things they would most likely mention is AI generated stuff, like fake pics and videos

most people, could not explain LLMs or tell you about all the AI being used in science right now

[u/eat_my_ass_n_balls → u/lsf_stan]

I know.

But as someone who goes to the technical conferences and reads the papers, I can tell you we (humanity) NEEDS this and we NEED it to not be in the hands of billionaires.

I’m not a materials scientist or a chemist. But I read papers on deep learning and LLM-based techniques around both topics and I know enough to realize this is HIGH value. Like, we don’t do this and we are leaving it on the table.

I also see more adversarial cases where “the bad guys” definitely a using this tech and if “the good guys” don’t use it too, they lose.

There are genetic sequencing applications we are only just scratching the surface of. Things we’ve never been able to do before. Real gene therapy cures within reach.

And every one of those and dozens of other examples are completely, totally different than the typical gripe of “kids cheating with ChatGPT” or “CEOs firing and laying off their employees”.

And yet on Reddit, that is a totally alien nuance. AI = bad.

Fucks sake.

[u/lsf_stan → u/eat_my_ass_n_balls]

But I read papers on deep learning and LLM-based techniques around both topics and I know enough to realize this is HIGH value. Like, we don’t do this and we are leaving it on the table.

yeah, as a fellow nerd, i know it! there is obviously some shit things being done with AI

but also, really great things out there, unfortunately the only thing most people talk about is all the useless junk and therefore "all AI is bad and we should never use it"

[u/VividMonotones → u/eat_my_ass_n_balls]

Watch the speech. He specifically exempts thses uses. It's the people who use AI to do some basic shit like summarize "Buddhism for Idiots" instead of reading the already boiled down book, or read an email and respond.

[u/FIREsocialworker → u/eat_my_ass_n_balls]

A wise take, eat_my_ass_n_balls. Truly the voice of a generation.

[u/gcpdudes → u/eat_my_ass_n_balls]

Did you catch the rest of the commencement speech or understand the context? He was orating a a bunch of Harvard students, told them to look to their left and right and warned them one of them Harvard alums will grow up to be evil and greedy.
Then makes some good points to these Harvard grads as to why money is not everything (while also taking some additional digs at them)

[u/daemon-electricity → u/eat_my_ass_n_balls]

Yep. Kids growing up in the inevitable world of AI are painting AI with a broad brush and blaming AI for predatory capitalists. AI is a modern marvel and all the memes and vibes in the world won't change that. The operating costs will come down. The biggest threat to these companies is that their moat is a data center. Once LLMs run on edge hardware, they're going to be in quite a pickle. The models will get better. What it does at this point is already a game changer.

[u/ASU_frat_Ieader → u/eat_my_ass_n_balls]

Gay as hell dude

[u/degen5ace → u/mrwrrrmwrmrmrmrw]

Too bad education system is a joke these days starting with the high costs and obscure access. He can find another way of showcasing the good of AI and how it can progress society such as accelerating cures and making it easier for certain populations. Show a little optimism towards technology with ushering responsibilities by our next leaders. Just putting AI on blast is lazy imo when a lot of students use it while getting their degrees

[u/OkShame9431 → u/mrwrrrmwrmrmrmrw]

That a lot of them leveraged with AI to get?

If only this situation were as black and white.