Microsoft says it totally understands why students are booing AI-hyping graduation speakers
The Verge AI3 days agoCommentaryGraduating students across the US have been booing and heckling commencement speakers who promote AI, with clips going viral online. Microsoft Vice Chair Brad Smith responded with a lengthy blog post acknowledging students' concerns and calling for dialogue. The episode highlights a growing disconnect between tech industry optimism about AI and the anxieties of young people entering the workforce.
Ask HN: Why is the HN crowd so anti-AI?
Hacker News (AI keywords)8 days agoOpinionThis Hacker News Ask HN post asks why the HN community seems so anti-AI. Since no body text is provided, the specific argument, examples, and comment direction cannot be verified. Based on the title alone, it is best classified as a community opinion discussion about AI skepticism, likely relevant to developers and general tech readers tracking sentiment around AI adoption.
I Am Retiring from Tech to Live Offline
Simon Willison's Weblog14 days agoEthicsSimon Willison highlights Chad Whitacre’s decision to leave tech and Open Source, framed not as a forum threat but as concrete action. Whitacre describes wanting to become “AI Amish” or “Internet Amish,” moving toward an offline, analog life closer to 1980 than 1780. A previous post about using Claude Code with Opus 4.5 shows how agentic AI felt intoxicating and unsettling enough to push him away from technological accelerationism.
Quoting Daniel Jalkut
Simon Willison's Weblog14 days agoOpinionSimon Willison quotes Daniel Jalkut’s short comment on the polarized AI debate. Jalkut argues that people against AI are often too against it, while people for AI are often too for it. The post is not a technical update, but a concise opinion pointing to the need for more balanced, less tribal evaluation of AI’s benefits and harms.