Steve Wozniak told graduates they have "actual intelligence," and they loved it

[midian182]

What just happened? For the third time in a few weeks, someone has mentioned AI at university graduation speech. But rather than being drowned out by boos, the speaker received cheers. That's because it was AI skeptic Steve Wozniak, and he was talking about "actual intelligence."

Apple co-founder Wozniak, perhaps the best-loved personality in the tech industry, spoke at Grand Valley State University's graduation ceremony earlier this month.

The Woz brought up the subject of AI, something that concerns many of today's graduates who fear its negative impact on their job prospects.

"You have AI – actual intelligence," Wozniak said, eliciting a round of applause from the audience.

"It would take too long to go deeply into what I think about AI, but we've been trying to create a brain," Wozniak said. "Is there a way we can duplicate a routine a trillion times and have it work like a brain? AI is one of those attempts."

"I was at a company where the engineers figured out how to make a brain," he continued, adding that it "takes nine months."

Unlike most tech luminaries and executives, Wozniak doesn't view AI with slavish adoration. He said in a March interview with CNN that he doesn't use the technology very much, and when he does, he's "disappointed a lot."

Wozniak complained that AI often didn't generate the specific information he was looking for, and the text it comes up with is too dry and too perfect.

The reaction to Wozniak's remarks was a stark contrast to two recent university graduation speeches in which AI was mentioned. The most recent was by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who spoke about the amazing abilities of agentic AI and warned those refusing to use the technology that they'd be left behind. Unsurprisingly, this was greeted with a cacophony of boos that seemed to visibly irate Schmidt, which made things worse.

Before Schmidt decided to praise AI in a room full of people who may struggle to find work because of it, Gloria Caulfield, VP of strategic alliances at Tavistock Group, did the same thing at UCF's College of Arts and Humanities and the Nicholson School of Communication and Media. She called it "the next industrial revolution," before describing the barrage of anger directed toward her as "passion."

Moving away from AI, Wozniak gave students some advice for their chosen career paths by paraphrasing Apple's famous 1997 advertising slogan and philosophy.

"You should always try to think different," he said. "Don't follow the same steps as a million other people. Think, is there something I can do a little different?"

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Steve Wozniak told graduates they have "actual intelligence," and they loved it

 

[Rapob]

AI is the future. Young people know this.

 

[The Talking Tech]

AI is the future. Young people know this.

Yes, young people know that they won't have the jobs they want, but the ones A.I base companies would allow them to be in.

 

[Rapob]

Yes, young people know that they won't have the jobs they want, but the ones A.I base companies would allow them to be in.

Which jobs do they want?

 

[NumberNine]

Some people have an uncompromising devotion to quality, integrity, and authenticity, but the majority of people are fine with mediocre instant gratification and those people will be perfectly suited for their roles as slop drones.

 

[GeoffreyA]

He brought up the central point, that true AI is about replicating what the brain does. The others sweep this under the carpet.

 

[scavengerspc]

AI is the future. Young people know this.

I know a lot of young people, and while some still have hope, very few "know" that.
In fact, it scares the s**t out of many of them.

Which jobs do they want?

Do you believe the answer to that question, in tech, has changed in the last 2+ decades?

 

[TooQik]

AI is the future. Young people know this.

AI is definitely the future....because what they are selling as AI right now sure isn't.

 

[The Talking Tech]

Which jobs do they want?

More like what jobs would there be available by the time they hit retirement.....that's the real question.

 

[wiyosaya]

I'm usually averse to whatever the Woz says, however, in this case, he seems like he is one of a very limited few actually willing to come out and speak his mind on AI and the fallacy that is being sold to the public as AI, and his comments are based on his own personal experience with AI rather than a lack of understanding.

IMO, he should be cheered for this.

 

[Endymio]

... his comments are based on his own personal experience with AI rather than a lack of understanding.

Oops! He quite literally admits he knows little about AI and has little experience with it; a trait he shares in common with the anti-AI crew here. In any case, his mind has ossified: the Woz of 1976 would have used AI tools had they been available then; the Woz of today is a fossilized remnant of his earlier self.

I'm reminded of the theory of plate tectonics which, despite the overwhelming evidence in favor of it discovered in the late 19th and early 20th century, continued to be widely rejected by geologists until the 1960s. When acceptance came, it wasn't because those older geologists finally accepted the evidence, but simply because they had died out, to be replaced by a younger generation, able to let go the preconceptions of the past.

 

[BobHome]

Oops! He quite literally admits he knows little about AI and has little experience with it; a trait he shares in common with the anti-AI crew here. In any case, his mind has ossified: the Woz of 1976 would have used AI tools had they been available then; the Woz of today is a fossilized remnant of his earlier self.

I'm reminded of the theory of plate tectonics which, despite the overwhelming evidence in favor of it discovered in the late 19th and early 20th century, continued to be widely rejected by geologists until the 1960s. When acceptance came, it wasn't because those older geologists finally accepted the evidence, but simply because they had died out, to be replaced by a younger generation, able to let go the preconceptions of the past.

Oops! did you read the rest of his AI statement? ...when he does, he's "disappointed a lot."
I test the waters now & then, too, and am usually disappointed, too. (maybe I need to dumb-down my queries?)

 

[BobHome]

Some people have an uncompromising devotion to quality, integrity, and authenticity, but the majority of people are fine with mediocre instant gratification and those people will be perfectly suited for their roles as slop drones.

I believe that's because of (1) all the Doom & Gloom about job security--can't have the same job for 50 years like Grandpa did because it will be fazed out, and (2) the majority are really after food & shelter and--maybe--even a vehicle. I know this from family members, kids & grandkids.

 

[Endymio]

Oops! did you read the rest of his AI statement? ...when he does, he's "disappointed a lot."
I test the waters now & then, too, and am usually disappointed, too.

Your statement contains the implicit fallacy that public LLMs, or even LLMs in general, equate to all of AI, when they're just a fraction of the generative AI sphere, and exclude predictive AI entirely.

 

[wiyosaya]

Oops! He quite literally admits he knows little about AI and has little experience with it; a trait he shares in common with the anti-AI crew here. In any case, his mind has ossified: the Woz of 1976 would have used AI tools had they been available then; the Woz of today is a fossilized remnant of his earlier self.

I'm reminded of the theory of plate tectonics which, despite the overwhelming evidence in favor of it discovered in the late 19th and early 20th century, continued to be widely rejected by geologists until the 1960s. When acceptance came, it wasn't because those older geologists finally accepted the evidence, but simply because they had died out, to be replaced by a younger generation, able to let go the preconceptions of the past.

Not everyone of us bases their experience on one successful encounter that proved "superior" over humans.

Just like in investing, past performance does not necessarily indicate future returns.

We all know that some here think they are bountiful fountains of knowledge even though their fountains sometimes run dry.

 

[Subset6]

Always preferred the Mass Effect approach to this. VI and AI. Virtual Intelligence or simulated intelligence then AI for actual thinking self aware machines.

 

[Joeg1484]

Im really happy that the young people of today are smart and know whats good for them. They will pave the way right over these ******* CEOs that "Think" they can control people with their money and politics.

If they cant get to the next generation, they are screwed and Im all for that!

 

[acrossthestars]

I don't know where I read it, but at the moment, the best way to describe AI is as a "cognitive amplifier". Here's the problem with that assessment: an amplifier amplifies, it does not generate wholecloth. A lot of people are using the fact that most LLMs have been trained on the large majority of the past several thousand years of human social, philosophical, socioeconomic history to develops systems and create products, but they aren't using the AI to learn any of that stuff (assuming the information was ingested and regurgitated correctly). Instead, a large majority of users are using AI as a drop-in replacement to their own cognitive deficit. They are using AI as a substitute for life experience.

Don't know how to do something? Well, you can learn from YouTube or Udemy, or some other online source, or go to the library or go to community college...but all of that takes time and effort. You have to want to learn. You have to want to develop yourself and better your life. A small minority will do that, but the large majority simply doesn't care at all. They are interested in results, it does not matter how they are achieved. That's why we have people like Clavicular and Chungin Lee, two individuals who couldn't be more different in how they've gone about living their lives, but their philosophies are basically identical: they don't believe in personal growth. They beleve in "optimisation"―which is to say, they believe that the best way to achieve your goal is by min-maxing your investment. Getting the most out for the least put in.

For example, making slop content―low effort garbage designed expressly to garner attention and engagement, for the purpose of gaming traffic algorithms―used to take effort. You had to understand the market, learn how to use editing software and then match your slop to the current trend. It's a bad-faith use of skills, because it did used to take skill to make slop and it would have been a better use of time, to make actually good content. But, that was then and this is now. Now, AI makes slop content requires a $20 subscription to Claud Opus and 5 minutes. The barrier use to be guard post, that would check your credentials before opening the gate. At this point, it's more like a speedbump that you merely have to slow down for.

Give people no incentive to do better and they will simply languish, feeding into their own sloth and avarice.

 

[JaredTheDragon]

Oops! He quite literally admits he knows little about AI and has little experience with it; a trait he shares in common with the anti-AI crew here. In any case, his mind has ossified: the Woz of 1976 would have used AI tools had they been available then; the Woz of today is a fossilized remnant of his earlier self.

I'm reminded of the theory of plate tectonics which, despite the overwhelming evidence in favor of it discovered in the late 19th and early 20th century, continued to be widely rejected by geologists until the 1960s. When acceptance came, it wasn't because those older geologists finally accepted the evidence, but simply because they had died out, to be replaced by a younger generation, able to let go the preconceptions of the past.

And yet plate techtonics was simply a rebranded continental drift theory, and all of your vaunted "geologists" buried Wegener for it and still haven't produced a single shred of new evidence or work in the field ever since. In the literature, we are always told that Wegener's theory wasn't accepted because he didn't provide the driving force of drift. Interesting, since the theorists of plate tectonics have also not been able to provide the driving force, given over half a century to do so. Nobody has done this except for one lone physicist, who wasn't even a geologist - and you don't even know his name.

Your example is trash - just like current "AI". Maybe you used a fake AI to write your comment?

Acceptance does nothing for the Scientific Method. It's irrelevant. It doesn't matter how many people accept "plate tectonics" when none of them can explain what causes the drift to begin with. "Plate tectonics" isn't even a theory, it's a description.

 

[Endymio]

And yet plate techtonics was simply a rebranded continental drift theory...Your example is trash - just like current "AI". Maybe you used a fake AI to write your comment? ..."Plate tectonics" isn't even a theory, it's a description.

Your comments are so muddled, it's impossible to understand what point you believe you're making: is it that plate tectonics is wrong, or that it should be rejected because it "fails to explain the motive force" (both are wrong). Those same geologists rejected the very idea that continents drift, nor was it "one lone physicist" who's been able to explain why they move.

You're also incorrect that plate tectonics is flawed without that motive force, as the mere existence of drift alone was sufficient explain countless puzzling facts of geological formation. Darwin didn't explain *how* DNA mutated and recombined to cause the variance in natural selection -- the mere existence of that variance alone was sufficient.

Not that any of this is even relevant: this is merely one of thousands of possible examples. Many of you who refuse to accept AI will continue to do so, no matter how successful it becomes. But you'll die off eventually, and it won't matter. I knew people who spent 20 years calling the Internet a 'passing fad' ... all the way to the day they died.

 

[psycros]

Many of you who refuse to accept AI will continue to do so, no matter how successful it becomes. But you'll die off eventually, and it won't matter. I knew people who spent 20 years calling the Internet a 'passing fad' ... all the way to the day they died.

No one - literally no one - believes you. But enjoy your time in the Cult of the New. It'll end when the power goes out, shortly after the last living electrician "dies off".

 

[TooQik]

Your statement contains the implicit fallacy that public LLMs, or even LLMs in general, equate to all of AI, when they're just a fraction of the generative AI sphere, and exclude predictive AI entirely.

And your statement here assumes that Wosniak has only trialled publicly available generative AI products before making his comments regarding the current state of AI.

AI as it stands right now, is nothing more than machine learning combined with exceptionally large data sets that has come about from technological advances in computation speed and data storage, combined with years of data harvesting.

 

[toooooot]

Nice to see a man who has not lost his humanity due to insane wealth that he earned. Soon, most of these billionaires will be afraid to speak in front of students, for obvious reasons

 

[scoffer]

Oops! He quite literally admits he knows little about AI and has little experience with it; a trait he shares in common with the anti-AI crew here. In any case, his mind has ossified: the Woz of 1976 would have used AI tools had they been available then; the Woz of today is a fossilized remnant of his earlier self.

I'm reminded of the theory of plate tectonics which, despite the overwhelming evidence in favor of it discovered in the late 19th and early 20th century, continued to be widely rejected by geologists until the 1960s. When acceptance came, it wasn't because those older geologists finally accepted the evidence, but simply because they had died out, to be replaced by a younger generation, able to let go the preconceptions of the past.

Oooooops...............come back and visit us when you have achieved 10% of what Wozniak has. He is certainly held in higher regard than some arrogant know-it-all ( via ChatGpT no doubt).

 

[ZedRM]

Woz continues to impress, show his wisdom and make smart moves.

Kick Butt Woz!