Boo-sters

0:00Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College Deal. Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college PC. The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution.

0:46Hello and welcome to the 404 Media podcast where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds both online and IRL. 404 Media is a journalist founded company and needs your support. To subscribe, go to 404media.co. As well as bonus content every single week, subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to their best comments. Gain access to that content at 404media.co. I'm your host, Joseph. And with me are 404 Media co-founders, Sam Cole. Hey. And Jason Kebler. Hello, hello. All right, let's get into it. The first one here, the headline is, Students Boo Commencement Speaker After She Calls AI the, quote, Next Industrial Revolution.

1:35What we'll actually do before we talk about it, let's just play the audio first of this particular speaker.

1:43Sam:The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution. Oh. Whoa.

1:56What happened? Okay, I struck a chord.

2:04Sam:May I finish?

2:12Sam:Only a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives.

2:26Sam:a lot of booing today a lot of clips of people booing students booing um yeah that clip was obviously it's pretty uncomfortable to watch i'm sure she was very uncomfortable in the moment um but it's you know like thousands of graduates from university of central florida's college of arts and humanities and the nicholson school of communication and media who were graduating on may 8th. And the commencement speaker was Gloria Caulfield, and she is the vice president of strategic alliances at Tavistock Group. Why she was booked for this particular commencement, I have no idea. Feels like a setup from the organizers.

3:08Sam:It's almost, you almost feel bad for her because she's so off the mark as far as what these graduates want to hear, need to hear during this graduation. So she's coming from like a private equity sort of background. Sometimes that's someone who's like connected to the college in some way, like they are an alum or they are... Sometimes they're like a famous person who the school is giving them like an honorary doctorate or something like that. As far as I know, this person is not connected to the school. the one at my school is like extremely stupid as well like sometimes it's just a rando and it's unclear why and yes in this case they chose like a private equity person on the point of it being like people being connected like ostensibly to the school the group Tavistock group that Gloria works for she her part of her job description is she oversees the health and medical partnerships and business development for Tavistock's visionary Lake Nona community.

4:14Sam:And Lake Nona is a planned community in Florida. And Lake Nona has a partnership with UCF. And that's where the university's health and sciences campus is. So I assume probably what happened, and again, we don't know for sure, but UCF was like, we got to give this in exchange for helping us set up the health and sciences campus on visionary like Nona were going to give the person who helped make that happen a slot in a commencement speech and unfortunately for her the slot was the College of Arts and Humanities so that's maybe the connection we don't really know for sure. Yeah well that actually leads to my next question which is that I mean all sorts of students may boo AI definitely not a universal position, obviously.

5:04But as we're going to see, there's several clips where this has happened reading commencement speeches. But the fact that these were humanities students specifically, can you just talk about that for a second? Like, what were these people studying as far as we know? And how does that relate to AI?

5:19Sam:Yeah, I mean, we're talking about students who've spent the last, you know, several years of their lives studying like library sciences and all of the the sorts of like history and things like that. And it's the, the jobs and the sectors that we've documented pretty thoroughly, especially with libraries and research and social sciences and things like that, where like AI is coming in and just making people's jobs way harder. It's not actually creating any kind of like great productivity, productivity boost. It's just muddying the waters for people like archivists and historians, researchers who are trying to get papers published, the peer review process is just bogged down incredibly by AI-generated slop.

6:04And at the same time, you have people like Alex Karp, who's the CEO of Palantir,

6:10Sam:outright saying that AI will destroy humanity's jobs. And it's like the people developing AI are saying, it will destroy your job. And we then see the CEOs and the executives at these companies blaming AI very publicly for things like layoffs. It's like Meta announced that it was laying off 10 % of its workforce this month. Pinterest, Dow, Microsoft, all these companies that are very visibly and publicly and vocally blaming AI, whether or not that's true or whether or not AI is to blame for these layoffs. They're saying, hey, AI is doing this to the jobs that you used to have or the jobs that you're entering into, like the job market that you hope to have as a graduate.

6:54And people

6:54Sam:see that and people aren't, you know, like dumb. People are paying attention to the news, paying attention to how AI is being talked about and how people are experiencing AI in their fields. And that's who she's talking to is people who are trying to get a job right after college. You know, they spent a bunch of money on this degree. They got a bunch of loans. And the market that they're entering into is just really bleak. And a lot of it is AI related or being said that it's AI related, whether or not it is. But yeah, it's just like, read the room is kind of the message. Yeah. And you're right about sort of, there's almost a difference between the actual impact of AI on jobs and then what is being said about it.

7:39But at the end of the day, these are people who are about to enter the workforce, hopefully in some form. And even if they are just saying it and it turns out maybe they're going to be okay, like you're still saying it and this is going to be the obvious reaction to it. It is something that we've talked about so much, how AI is going to impact jobs or how it's already impacting jobs. We've talked a little bit less about how it is affecting or going to affect new graduates and also the types of things that they study. And I don't know, maybe it won't impact... We talk a lot about how it's changing school and all that.

8:15But I think that in journalism, which is all we can really speak to, it has really hollowed out the entry-level market in a big way. A lot of the stuff that is being automated is stuff that previously either interns would do or entry-level people would do. Where you just have someone come into a job and you teach them on the job by having them do... And it's not always easy stuff, but you start them out with stuff that is pretty straightforward. And that is the type of thing that AI is pretty good at or is getting better at. And I think that's what's happening with coding. It's what's happening with a lot of jobs where the entry-level stuff is going away first.

9:01And also, there are a lot of layoffs or there's been a lot of layoffs. But something else that's been happening is a lot of job openings have been closed. So prospective jobs that one could get, companies aren't hiring for those roles. They're closing those roles. And so I think it is a very scary time right now to be graduating into this job market. And I'm sure that these students know that. And as Sam said, they just spent a shitload of money, spent four years studying. And yeah, then they're going into this very uncertain space. Yeah. To have someone from private equity then tell you this is the next industrial revolution.

9:47But there was another clip that we didn't write an article about, but Evie, our social media manager, she cut it up and pull it straight online. And it was a really, really good example. The sort of text that went with that, almost the headline is, Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt booed for praising AI in commencement speech. Let's just play that as well. Architects of artificial intelligence. Interesting.

10:14You will help shape artificial intelligence. We do not know. We do not know. The precise contours. If you'd let me make this point, please.

10:32If you don't care about science, that's okay, because AI is going to touch everything else as well. Whatever path you choose, AI will become part of how work is done. You can now assemble a team of AI agents to help you with the parts that you could never accomplish on your own. When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on. The rocket ship is here. Let me give you some advice. First, find a way to say yes. Listen. You were in the judgment. Sam, so could you tell us where this was? And when you listened to it before, did any differences jump out at you about this clip?

11:22Or is it very similar to the other one? Like, what do you make of it? Is it more of the same or?

11:28Sam:I mean, so it's Eric Schmidt, who is probably way more used to being in front of a big audience than Glory Caulfield. So his reaction, her reaction is immediately, she turns away. She's like, oh, I don't know what to do. He just, maybe also because that clip of Gloria going viral, everyone's seen it. So maybe speakers are getting used to being booed now. I think Eric Schmidt is also used to being booed. He's being used to being booed, for sure. So he just keeps talking, like he leans into it. What he's talking about is, you know, he's kind of addressing, like, preempting the booing. He's like, there's a fear in your generation.

12:08Sam:The future has already been written. The machines are coming, which starts to feel like, OK, he like someone saying someone's acknowledging that there is something is going on here. Like, obviously, people are angry. People are scared. And he says, you know, I understand that fear. and then he goes on to say that the future is unwritten and that the graduating class of 2026 has power to shape how ai develops which people boo again because you if you notice in these clips and there are several others that we'll get to but um even when they're trying to kind of sell this like you still have control over your future you still have the ability to say how you want ai to exist in your lives, AI will exist in your life.

12:53Sam:And it is inevitable and it is a given. And no matter what you do, you're going to have to figure out how to cope with AI in your life. And that's what the audiences boo again. They boo to begin with. It's definitely... Again, he pushes through it. And so does Gloria. But I do also wonder if getting booed, I mean, thank God graduation season's almost over, but if getting booed at a commencement speech is going to become a thing that people want to do, that they try to do, if you're like an AI executive or if you're a PE person and you come in and you get booed at this massive, Eric said ASU, I don't know if we said this already, ASU, which recently launched ASU Atomic, which I wrote about, which is stealing lecturers' work and chopping it up into AI slop.

13:49Sam:But he's speaking at this huge, huge, huge university and so are the others. And it goes mega viral and it's massively viral online. And then what you're saying reaches the boosters who are on your team and they are like, yeah, they're not ready for what he's saying. Sorry, and also just to clarify, when you say boosters, you mean people who are boosting something, not people who are boo... Yeah, boosters. But boo-erns. It sounded like she was saying the boosters. Boosters is really... That's not a thing. I'm not even making the pun. I'm clarifying it for the listener. Alright? But yes, that's what you mean.

14:32Sam:Yeah. Yes. People who are boosting AI and they're pro-AI or pro-whatever Eric Schmidt and Goyer are saying. and they're saying, you know, they don't, these kids today, they're not ready, they're not entering this, like they just need to deal with it, which is what another speaker, Scott Borchetta, CEO of Big Machine Records, he spoke at Middle Tennessee State University, which is a much smaller school, obviously, but he started with AI's rewriting production as we sit here, and then he goes on to say, deal with it. They start booing him, and he says, deal with it. It's a tool. There's a tool here, for sure.

15:07Right, right. Yeah, that's a good one. So, I think there was one more example just before I ask my last question. Yeah. Well, so I was going to say, I remember, again, I graduated college a long time ago. I don't have the best of memory. So this is maybe useless to say. But I remember we had a weird person at my commencement speech who was talking. He just was not super inspiring. And people were not booing, but they were not sufficiently enthusiastic. And I remember someone from our college got on stage and they're like, give them a warmer welcome than that. You can do better than that. And that's the thing.

15:48I don't remember what it was, but I feel like around the Iraq War and other controversial things, there was a time where college students were booing or were just not sufficiently deferential to commencement speakers. and college administrators got really pissed about this. And then commencement speakers were like, well, I'm not going to talk if they're not going to cheer for me and that sort of thing. So I do wonder if there will be consequences for the person who shouted AI sucks or for people who boo because colleges are not... They should be free speech zones. This is a debate that's been happening over and over and over for many years at this point.

16:39But college administrators really don't like embarrassing people that they've invited to speak. And paid a lot of money to speak. Exactly. And so I do wonder if there's going to be some sort of freak out here. Yeah, I added one more to the podcast document here where Magic Johnson, the famous basketball player who also is involved with the Lakers still, he gave a commencement speech at Stillman College which is a historically black college university. I'm not sure exactly where it is, but this was also last week. And he talked about AI. And what he said was something to the effect of like, you know, it's gonna be, it's a scary time to be graduating to this.

17:25Like AI is, you should like know how AI works because it is a threat and you need to know that it's a threat. And he didn't get booed. He gave a nuanced take and it was well-received. And I think that's important to note just because it's like, well, if you are just a booster who is here trying to replace workers or you're a tech billionaire, Eric Schmidt vibes, you're going to get booed. But if you are acknowledging that it exists, that doesn't mean it's a third rail topic. Yeah, that's totally fair. Sam, the last thing I was just going to ask is that there was sort of this other viral video recently, I think during a graduation ceremony where the camera pivoted to the crowd.

18:17And have you seen this? There was a student and he had his laptop open. I haven't seen that. And he was scrolling through ChatGPT. Jason, did you see that? Oh my God, are you serious? Yeah, so... No, I didn't see it. So basically, yeah, yeah. So the camera pivots away from the stage to the audience, a graduate presumably, holds up his laptop and is just like smiling and grinning and like scrolling through all of his ChatGPT history, which I think the implication is that was using ChatGPT to graduate here in some capacity. And the only reason I bring it up is that while all of this booing is happening and these commencement speeches are happening, AI is across all of these campuses.

18:59Like in some way, like you mentioned, Sam, the stuff you covered, how he was regurgitating lectures and spitting it out that way. Students all over are using ChatGPT. And it just sucks all around that they're going to go into a market where the job prospects are, frankly, lower, even if it's not because of AI. It's because companies, as you say, Jason, are not giving entry level jobs and that sort of thing. And then presumably, because of the pressure that's getting to people to try to get these jobs, maybe they actually have to turn to these tools as well. or they feel like they have to turn to these tools as well.

19:32So it's just a fucking mess all around. All right, we'll leave that there. When we come back, we're going to be talking about, I mean, literally the internet of shit, basically, in a whole new way. We'll be right back after this.

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