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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed faculty members, proud parents, and most importantly, the incredible graduates of [University Name],
Today marks a monumental milestone in our lives, a day of celebration, reflection, and inspiration. As we gather here, we are not just commemorating the completion of an academic journey but also the beginning of a new chapter filled with endless possibilities and opportunities.
Graduates, as you sit here today, adorned in your caps and gowns, I want you to take a moment to look back at the journey that brought you to this very moment. Remember the late-night study sessions, the moments of self-doubt, and the challenges you faced along the way. Each obstacle you overcame, every setback you encountered, has only served to strengthen your resilience and determination.
But today is not just about looking back; it’s also about looking forward with hope and excitement for the future. As you step out into the world, armed with knowledge, passion, and a thirst for success, remember that the world is yours for the taking. Your education has equipped you with the tools to make a difference, to challenge the status quo, and to leave a lasting impact on the world around you.
But with great power comes great responsibility. As you embark on this new chapter of your lives, I urge you to use your education not just for personal gain but also for the betterment of society. Be compassionate, be empathetic, and above all, be agents of positive change in a world that is in desperate need of it.
Remember, success is not defined by the size of your paycheck or the title on your business card. True success is measured by the lives you touch, the communities you uplift, and the legacy you leave behind. So, as you go forth from this hallowed institution, I challenge you to be bold, be courageous, and never stop striving for excellence.
In closing, I want to leave you with the words of the great Nelson Mandela: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Class of [Year], go forth and change the world. Congratulations!
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.
Take someone that has grown up in our world learning from our history and having even the genetics produced by our evolution. There are people that are suicidal, people that are hedonistic or adrenaline seeking to the point of fatal danger, and people that live to serve even to the point of willingness to commit suicide if their masters ask it of them. Checkout Seppuku. Are these people not alive? Are soldiers not alive? Living means a great many different things to a great many beings. Mostly they have in common the desire to live. But that’s by no means a prerequisite, or even a result of life. Many consider some purpose or meaning in their life more important than life itself. And that’s with evolution constantly putting us back on track. If anything, the safety rails of modern society have made people more prone to stray from the desire to live for life’s sake.
I feel like you continuously bringing up mental illness in this argument plays into this conversation. No matter how perfect or imperfect the corporation that builds it the AI will be something that is built on top of the backs of thousands of people. These people will impart themselves onto this and to think you must feel in some capacity, a ctrl+f function only gets you so far in problem solving. Critical thinking is just that.
Your claim is that life demands the desire to live. I think ignoring the everyday cases where that’s not true gives your critical thinking a bad foundation. I also provided many other examples. Every person is built on the backs of thousands of people. My brain was developed by thousands of ancestors and filled with the knowledge of millions of other humans. Yet I’m capable of not fearing death. But that aside, an artificial consciousness will be a whole new ballgame. I don’t think we should assume the way we are is the way it is. That any consciousness will think the same.
I haven’t once brought up death and I’m not sure why you continue to make it a point when we debate a machine that cannot die. I do not assume it will be the way we are. That’s the entire point I’ve been trying to make but to assume you can make something truly artificially intelligent and have it serve you or the greater good is not going to work out the way you think it will. Once we create sentience it’s no longer a machine or predictable.
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.
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.
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