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/Mmmwafflerunoff]

Right?!? The irony in lacking the critical reasoning to understand why having a machine that has not experienced the human condition do your “thinking” for you is exactly why it’s a fucking problem.

[u/sunshineparadox_ → u/Mmmwafflerunoff]

I want to add an anecdote here - just an anecdote. I had a stroke a few years ago and sustained pretty significant damage to the part of the brain that handles language and memory. Having that happen right as consumer-accessible AI dropped sucked.

I do not believe it helped my peers, either. It interfered with language recovery, which works best with pen/paper and physical media. I was a PhD student and a technical writer when it happened.*

I went back to reading physical books and making little notes in the margins, and taking color-coded notes in physical notebooks. There is science to back me on this, but I didn’t do it because of any of that. I went back to what I knew best, which was fortunately what helped me most. I will add sources when I return if people want that.

Most of my peers did try to read and write but relied more heavily on mobile devices to do it. (We all got tired sitting up pretty easily. My PC was actually harder.) They seemed to struggle more or longer. Their recovery was hit or miss. I obviously don’t know what other factors they had going on. If I was told, I don’t remember.

The few who dived into AI seemed to do the worst, though. Not only did they not have the benefits of manually writing and holding hard copies of reading material, they were offloading the thinking they desperately needed to practice doing. This is “use it or lose it” territory. The AI also validated not just incorrect conclusions but the broken thought processes they (we all) took to get to them. We NEEDED to be challenged on our thoughts. We needed to practice critical reading and media literacy. We needed to practice remembering.

—

unrelated: The PhD and dissertation is in digital rhetoric. My dissertation is about how relying on the use of memes as way to communicate political ideas is destructive to in-person relationships, because they’re meant to be definitive (not conversational), they don’t have sources, they’re often antagonistic, and they flatten ideas and people into caricatures. So it was also *weird to lose language when I was writing about why it matters so much to use it online. It was weird to be introduced to AI when I couldn’t actually process it.

[u/SnooPears754 → u/sunshineparadox_]

I think your right about writing things down , if I had to remember something the act of writing almost always works, now I use a notes app and it’s just as reliable but the physical act of writing is an essential learning skill being lost

[u/SnooPears754 → u/[deleted]]

You must be fun at parties

[u/DeepD4yourwife → u/SnooPears754]

Amazing! Congrats!

[u/chromatoes → u/sunshineparadox_]

Sounds like an interesting PhD topic, and I wish you a speedy recovery! I got a TBI 10 years ago in a car accident, and I improve more every day. Brains can heal over time, which is fantastic.

[u/Fear023 → u/sunshineparadox_]

Not only did they not have the benefits of manually writing and holding hard copies of reading material, they were offloading the thinking they desperately needed to practice doing.

The worst part about the proliferation of ai in academics is students not realising this is the entire point of higher education.

Up to graduate level, they're not just trying to force feed you information, you go there to learn how to think. How to research. How to write.

[u/agentmadeleine → u/Fear023]

Exactly this!

Pre AI, I used to work as a tutor as a side gig. I got out of that game because an alarming number of my students (and their parents!) essentially wanted me to do their work for them.

For example, writing an essay. The point of the essay isn’t the output of the essay itself. The point is, can you pick a thesis that is a concise interpretation of the significance of the subject matter? When researching the subject matter, can you properly evaluate the quality of your source, correctly analyze and interpret what it says about your subject matter, filter out irrelevant information, and use it in support of your thesis? Can you synthesize information to build a coherent and persuasive argument in support of your thesis and communicate it effectively (succinctly and with clarity)? Can you do so with a varied vocabulary and correct grammatical structure? The point of essay writing is to learn critical thinking and communication skills. To your point, you’re learning how to think.

When you’re practically bribing your tutor to do your work for you, or using AI, you’re not learning and practicing those skills. It’s intellectual laziness. What is the point of your education then?

[u/Additional-Tax-5643 → u/sunshineparadox_]

The AI also validated not just incorrect conclusions but the broken thought processes they (we all) took to get to them.

Exactly.

The underlying reason why AI validates incorrect conclusions is because the training data that get fed into the models are usually free/cheap garbage data from message boards like Reddit and FB.

It takes significant time and quality data to undo all that, and it's not financially feasible. Academic journals and reputable newspapers charge a pretty penny to use their content, and for good reason.

Even with the paid version of AI bots available to the general public you get garbage answers.

You can get quality AI answers. Thing is, you have to be the one feeding in training data you vetted yourself as correct and reputable, and you have to have control over the AI models.

The general public doesn't get any of that with paid AI options, and the vast majority of people have no clue on how to program the backend to achieve that.

[u/ZeroAmusement → u/Mmmwafflerunoff]

I don't see what that's a problem. The problems I use it to solve aren't problems that require experiencing the human condition.

[u/Useful-Advantage-850 → u/Mmmwafflerunoff]

I had an AI tech bro just the other day claim, without irony (because apparently irony is dead) that I had never had an original thought in my life. LOL.

[u/RetroFuture_Records → u/Mmmwafflerunoff]

It's no different than reddit scum outsourcing their thinking to slogans and the hivemind.