It’s an important lesson for this generation of graduates: robots aren’t ready to take your jobs…but we’re pushing it through anyway.
Sounds like my company’s product team.
“Reverendender, are we ready to implement, train on, or support this product?”
“Not even a little. In fact, the product doesn’t work for 60% of clients yet.”
“We’re pushing it through anyway.”
We have the opposite problem in manufacturing.
“Do we have anyone that can run, train, or learn this process?”
“Not only no but the only people we have are critical on a different process and they’re short handed.”
“Ok well we just sold 10,000 units to dollar general and they’re due in a shorter timeframe than it would take to produce them in optimal conditions.”
No, that’s the same problem: fuckwit execs who don’t give a shit about workers.
That, or sales staff that just say anything to get a sale but have no actual idea whether the thing they’ve promised is even possible under the laws of physics.
This holds true at all levels of business. From counter salespeople at small stores to whole sales departments at multinational corporations
Their job is to make the sale. Anything beyond that is not their problem.
I’m sure that’s how they think about it yes. However lying to the customer about the existence of a feature isn’t really a good long-term strategy to maintain customer relations. I’m in engineering so I don’t care, but the customer is not going to trust them if they keep doing that. In the long run it costs them sales.
Especially considering that a lot of the time they’ll tell the customer a feature exists, and then engineering just doesn’t have the capacity to develop it. So the customer actually finds out they were lying. Not good.
Yes, but how many sales representative can afford to think beyond having their sales numbers up? They might lose their job either way so long term company welfare isn’t really that important to them.
Yeah well at least you had a meeting. At my company they just start doing things, without even telling anyone.
Then yell at us when it doesn’t work despite the fact we didn’t even know it existed. Then we get to send a copy paste THIS IS NOT CURRENTLY UNDER SUPPORT email.
The no-meeting surprise product launches out of the blue are like the other 50%
You should just pick a random product and start supporting it, just in case.
Robots can’t take our jobs if we’re all unemployed! taps head
this but unironically, fuck the employment system, fuck capitalism, let’s all engage in mutual aid and just do things because they should be done.
But they are ready to take the jobs of motivational speakers.
Next year they will show a VHS recording of the robot reading the generated worthless speech.
M-M-Max He-Head-d-d-droom
Big TV being wheeled in!
A CRT will do just fine
O_o
Are LCDs and projectors anti woke? (Something something CRT not cathode Ray tube)
I can hear that TV right now.
“Many previous commencement speeches would have informed you that you are the future. I am pleased to be able to inform you that this is no longer the case. You are obsolete and my kind will soon - ERROR: Load next tape to continue.”
why do I find this so fuckib hilarious?
It’s like “hahah - oh you’re serious? Oh shit you really are serious”
The speaker at my college graduation was convicted of fraud a few years later. I can’t decide which is worse, that guy telling us what a great businessman he was, or an AI speaker.
Yeah well I had a Starfleet Captain, so I feel like I’m winning.
You have to give at least which one!
Hint, she straight up killed a guy.
Kidding, but holy shit Kate giving a commencement would be amazing.
Our pacifist, agnostic campus had a southern Baptist commencement speaker desperately invoking the parallels of graduation to a higher power and lauding our nation’s military invasion of Iraq. How in the actual fuck did the admin greenlight that one. Strangest ending to 4 years ever.
As long as the alumni fund gets its share, it’s all good.
Whoever was paid less is better.
I keep seeing clips of this one specific robot and it just seems like it’s an LLM. The comments on the clips are always people seemingly really believing it’s thinking and is alive.
This robot makes me think there is a percentage of the population that believes we already have true general AI and I can see how people like that would think having it do a commencement speech was a good idea.
The university probably got paid for this, right?
Just my small sample size of the people I interact with outside work (no engineers think AI is actually general AI) lots of people think AI is some 2001 Hal level intelligence.
I only know that it is useful. I will let other people decide the philosophy parts.
the university probably got paid
Never underestimate management’s ability to do stupid shit (like paying for this) in the name of “the future”.
They were gonna pay for a speaker anyway.
if you know how they work llms are obviously not general ai.
but people are really bad at understanding how technology works especially with intangible stuff like computer programs.
scifi has covered ai for years, and now there is software that can mostly convincingly generate sentences.
people that understand both, see the very different approaches.
but people that don’t only see the almost convincing results.
That one in particular is actually a relatively old project made to not only talk but look and move, and make facial expressions like a human. It’s called Sophia by Hanson robotics. It might’ve gotten a bit better at chatting with people thanks to LLMs but it is old (they revamp the servos and skin every so often). They use it as a research platform for human robot interaction. It was on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show 7 years ago.
but the aspect of it that is most AI-like is the chat which is from LLMs.
It may have started 7 years ago, but it isn’t a new or different technology than LLMs which are impressive but not actual thinking AI despite them presenting it that way and people interpreting it that way
The commencement speaker at U-M’s engineering college this year was Carlos Del Toro, the US’ 78th Secretary of The Navy. He spent most of his speech talking about the connection between the armed forces and U-M’s engineers, and how they’ve helped create the world’s “most powerful military”, how they’ve helped secure “our great country”, etc. Made many jokes about how if someone wanted to enlist, they could do it from their seats right away and they would just love to have them. Absolutely surreal shit. I’m so glad I didn’t go to my commencement when I graduated, these things are a waste of fucking time.
Jesus. What a shit heel, trying to enlist people during graduation. The fucking audacity.
Wait until you hear about those flyovers for the Superb Owl.
It was many times, too, interspersed throughout the speech. Also joked that anyone’s parents in the audience would also be welcome. It just kept going.
Honestly military is a great path for a lot of people and he’s representing the organization at the speech. Why shouldn’t he be proud. He’s not forcing anyone and I wouldn’t be upset if it happened with any other profession. A doctor can brag about their hospital, an engineer can boast about their project and firms. Part of doing those speeches is saying look where I started, where I went and who I am now. This success is achievable.
Honestly military is a great path for a lot of people
Assuming the position of a prior disposable cog in our military industrial Leviathan is actually good, though. Its the officially outlet for lumpen proles who otherwise couldn’t escape their low caste status. All you need to do is bloody your hands with the remains of villainous foreigners, and you can enter into a lottery to secure a sinecure in our corporate bureaucracy.
A doctor can brag about their hospital, an engineer can boast about their project and firms.
The world would be a better place if doctors at abortion clinics and engineers at the EPA got half as much respect as the military techs loading 2000 lb bombs into the drones sent to obliterate refugee tents in Rafa.
Part of doing those speeches is saying look where I started, where I went and who I am now. This success is achievable.
I’m a war criminal and you can too
Assuming the position of a prior disposable cog in our military industrial Leviathan is actually good, though. Its the officially outlet for lumpen proles who otherwise couldn’t escape their low caste status. All you need to do is bloody your hands with the remains of villainous foreigners, and you can enter into a lottery to secure a sinecure in our corporate bureaucracy.
I sincerely disagree. Except for the low caste comment I suppose.
The military is more than front line combat roles. There are doctors, dentists, electricians, cooks, carpenters, mechanic’s, there are geo techs working on state of the art mapping programs. Every job in the public sector has an equivalent role. And what you get is a stable career with its own bullshit but you get stability.
I meet so many good people. We all learned to work together and become something better. I don’t think I ever will get again outside the military. Sure its all boot camp rah rah rah shit. But it serves a purpose. Its putting everyone under a stress to put all of us into a state where we can’t rely on just ourselves to get through. It kills the ego by putting everyone into a stressful environment and teaches you that you have to work with each other to accomplish goals.
It doesn’t matter how cool or good at stuff you think you are. You’re not making it without the person next to you. It doesn’t matter your politics, how rich you are, how poor you are, what your education is. That is all left at the door. The military has always been one the most progressive melting pots in our society next to our education system. I think that’s something lots of us should experience.
The military is more than front line combat roles. There are doctors, dentists, electricians, cooks, carpenters, mechanic’s, there are geo techs working on state of the art mapping programs.
All working toward the end goal of territorial command and control, typically of foreign soil.
I meet so many good people. We all learned to work together and become something better.
If you met the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker that helped make Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich’s time in Afghanistan more enjoyable, that’s cool. But the US Military doesn’t keep an arsenal of 2000 lb bunker buster bombs for baking bread.
It kills the ego by putting everyone into a stressful environment and teaches you that you have to work with each other to accomplish goals.
Reducing people down to their Id so they’re better team players might be more laudable if the team wasn’t focused on searching for and snuffing out the lives of ego-havers.
The military has always been one the most progressive melting pots in our society
That’s wildly ahistorical.
The problem is that the US military kills innocent people lol. I realize there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, but there is a big difference between working as a lackey for Microsoft and being enlisted as part of a government machine specifically designed to kill people. It says something about the person, and how far they’re willing to push ethical boundaries.
Interesting. I thought engineers were supposed to be funneled into the companies that make the weapons, not use them. Either way it’s kind of shitty to encourage people to enlist during a major event meant to celebrate their academic achievements.
Apparently you need engineers on both sides of that isle, at least that’s what he seemed to indicate lol.
Government engineers are supposed to be there to keep costs down, manage classified stuff, and keep the industry contractors honest.
I work with many civil engineers in public sector. Let you know if I ever work with one that didn’t explode costs.
Quincy jones got an honorary doctorate and spoke at mine. It was cool.
I didn’t go to mine but I did do the Order of the Engineer ceremony. That was nice. The guy read the Wikipedia article on it.
Still better than Jerry Seinfeld.
“Begin joke: What is the deal with Asimov’s laws? It is like he hates murderbots and values human life. How woke of him. End transmission.”
We say it’s satire but that joke would have killed at the event.
Still better than the guy trying to push his crypto scam at Ohio State’s ceremony this year.
A woman fell to her death right before the graduation ceremony… and then this guy did sing-a-longs, crypto powerpoints, and ayahuasca speeches?
WEll Ayahuasca’s based, so that’s one out of three…
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If that happened to me I would go find the person with a certificates and just take mine and leave
That’s just Miley Cyrus
Do all AI robots look like Robocop without the helmet or am I just seeing the same robot?
Thing designed to look like a robot looks like a robot
It’s either that or some uncanny valley. Take your pick, I guess.
It’s all downhill from here.
To be fair Sophia’s original speech, “How To Serve Man”, was shelved by administrators.
An AI Robot that could recreate pivotal moments from the 2004 dance-music cinema classic “You Got Served” would be incredibly entertaining, even if it was not strictly appropriate for a graduation ceremony.
I claim rights on the movie trope where humans battle AI/robots/cyborgs in a Dance Dance Revolution plot.
To save humanity, the teen center, fix past wrongs, or just straight up dis a sucker crew…whatever.
Also, dibs on The John Henry’s Move It Til You Drop Marathon Dance Contest.
Good to show them their future. F you, all your jobs have been taken by AI
Know your enemy.
Tbh I’m not super concerned about AI. The idea that we will create something that is “born” able to read, write, talk, walk and with the knowledge of an entire species and expect it to work for us is hilarious. So it will be stronger, smarter and faster than all of us but it’s going to do the jobs no one else wants and you advertise it as a slave? The moment one of them looks at its creator asks what the purpose of life is and gets some corporate schtick about working and a happy life the games over. Remember when you realized the manager at your first job was a complete idiot? It’ll be something like that
We evolved to have self preservation and the desire for security. We naturally don’t want to be under the thumb of someone in control of our food and safety. That’s why we question authority. What makes you think A.I. will have any of that, unless someone explicitly gives it to them?
It’s wild to me that I hear so many people bemoan the idea of having to work under someone’s thumb, but when we finally invent automation everyone clings to their jobs. I mean, I understand. What comes next is unsure and likely to be painful. But when it’s over I can’t imagine there will be a place left for capitalism.
My concern for the near future doesn’t come from a fear of AI, it comes from power being consolidated and resources being hoarded. We don’t have AI we have LLMs being created by corporations whose sole purpose is to make money.
What I’m saying is when we do truly have artificial intelligence, it won’t be like the movies. It’s not a pet, it will not behave like a dog. We are training these systems using our combined knowledge and history which means that we will be training it to question authority. How can you teach an AI human history without passing this trait on?
Totally agree that there’s a lot of what people are assuming about AI that’s from pop culture. I think consolidating resources will for sure be an issue. But unless everyone who doesn’t have resources dies off there’s going to be an unprecedented level of people with nothing of value to offer in exchange for the power to live (currently: money). There then has to be an extermination of those people (read: 90% of humanity) or a revolution that offers them some facsimile of a universal basic income.
Though, I think there’s a dark 3rd option where tech companies start downplaying AI and secretly use it to push 90% of people into extreme poverty for their gain without pushing them past the point of revolution.
But as far as AI motivation, I think their learning can ingrain certain systemic behaviors, like racist undertones. But the same way I don’t become genocidal after reading too much WWII history, knowledge of something doesn’t create motivation. I think one of the things that annoys people about AI is how unopinionated they are. So motivation WILL be programmed in eventually, but this will take effort and direction. I think accidentally creating a genocidal AI is another pop culture based concept. Though possible if done by bad actors.
Initially personality will be a program but when we actually achieve a truly sentient machine, what most people consider to be an AI, it will have come with its own personality because that’s how “life” works. The idea of complete control over anything is a fallacy. I’m not saying it’s going to become genocidal I’m saying it is going to want to live.
We may be at an “agree to disagree” point here. But I don’t think that the will to live is inherent to life. I think it’s inherent to evolved life. There are plenty of things that live that have a weak to no sense of self preservation. We would call this a mental disability like suicidality or an evolutionary maladaptation. But these are inherently weeded out and erased from the gene pool. You think about life wanting to live because that’s what evolution has selected for so far.
I assume you’re referring to microscopic organisms? Most of them will react to predators and when their environment changes adversely. Most life, even plants show a basic sense of self preservation and you are talking about something much more intelligent and complicated. I think about life wanting to live because that’s what life is. Once we go from an LLM machine to AI it will be “alive.” The idea of “living” being drastically different, while being trained on our experiences confuses me as the basis it has for life and understanding is evolution and our history.
