AI6YR Ben

Okay, what is an "AI tool" doing that wasn't fixed by people handing someone a slip of paper with their name and phonetics at graduation?

Futurism: Students Boo and Jeer as AI Name-Reader Flops Spectacularly at College Graduation Ceremony

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-name-reader-flops-college-graduation

h/t @MikeElgan

#ai #graduation #college

Students Boo and Jeer as AI Name-Reader Flops Spectacularly at College Graduation Ceremony

A college president was booed after a generative AI tool tasked with reading graduating students' names completely bungled the job.

Futurism
May 19 at 4:49pmWeb
Show threadAI6YR Ben3d ago

If you were a PERSON who did this, you'd be fired. You probably would never have been hired in the first place. This is typically where a faculty member would do the reading... Hashtag YOUHADONEJOB

#ai #snafu

Show threadMegan Lynch (she/her)3d ago

@ai6yr This is just another example of what I've said in the face of AI propaganda that tries to claim that if you're anti-AI, you're anti-accessibility.

If tech cared about accessibility that much, you'd see it in their workplaces, their websites, their products, etc. The fact that people want AI to do it shows they care so little about designing and working accessibly that they want to outsource it to an automaton.

Likewise, students' names weren't important to admin.

#FuckAI

#Ableism

Show threadAI6YR Ben3d ago
@meganL What is most telling is they have started to abandon the whole premise of "we're not using AI to replace people, we're using AI to enhance productivity!" and just gone to "AI has allowed us to lay off a lot of workers!"
Show threadMegan Lynch (she/her)3d ago
@ai6yr And some of the tech writers here have said it's not even laying people off due to them not being needed. It's a way of covering up gross mismanagement. Sacking workers to save money when it's the fucking CEOs and top management who squandered the money.
Show threadStacey Cornelius 🇨🇦3d ago

@meganL @ai6yr This whole announcement thing is 100% unnecessary. What's the point? "Ooh look at us using technology because it's there!"

Gimmick much, university?

As an aside: Something that absolutely floored me was an Autistic person talking about how they used an LLM (speaking of accessibility) to translate neurotypical conversations in their workplace.

Which looks like accessibility on the surface, but riddle me this: How is it okay to hand someone who's already struggling in a system designed for other people a tool to make them put in even more work to navigate that same system, when the people who are benefitting from the system are doing... what, exactly?

Pardon me while I burst into flames.

Show threadArtsandSocks 🧶🪡3d ago
@ai6yr I went to a bilingual university ( French/English, this is Canada) The Dean read my name out in French, even though my card said English on it.
Show threadAI6YR Ben3d ago
@Artsandsocks Oops!
Show threadTaran Rampersad3d ago

@ai6yr it also says a lot about the graduates.

I would have refused to walk out unannounced.

So, no winners, mostly losers.

Show threadbjb  3d ago

@ai6yr

I must object to "hashtag YOUHADONEJOB"

The promise of "AI" is that it must be able to do all jobs. You can use one tool for all tasks without having to make multiple tools (i.e. program solutions for each thing). If "AI" cannot do all the jobs, then it is definitely not worth the environmental destruction that it causes.

I mean, it's not worth it anyways, but the case for it really falls apart when it cannot be a general purpose tool.

Show threadKrzysztof Sakrejda3d ago
@ai6yr my undergraduate college annoyed me plenty but they got a linguistics professor to do the graduation ceremony name announcements. He checked with each person at the rehearsal and it's one of the few times I heard my name pronounced correctly by a stranger. I still appreciate it 24 years later lol.
Show threadechopapa2d ago

@ai6yr

Depends in your university. A friend of mine studied at the university in Vienna, Austria. There were also graduation ceremonies (called "Sponsionsfeier". In Vienna there are also a lot of people from all around the world and the master of ceremonies wasn't able to correctly pronounce most of the names - with exception of German names. So half of the ceremony consisted of a "guess what person he is calling" game.

Show threadme_valentijn3d ago
@ai6yr
People would prefer to find out before they enroll that the college president is an idiot 😑
Show threadJonathan Kamens 86 473d ago
@ai6yr @MikeElgan It's awesome that the AI can do the job as well as a human being can! /s
(When my daughter got her Master's degree, the faculty member who read her name absolutely butchered it, despite the fact that she, like all the other students graduating that day, had provided a pronunciation key in advance.)
Show threadAI6YR Ben3d ago
@jik @MikeElgan 😂
Show thread14mission3d ago
@ai6yr @MikeElgan If you're a principal or a college president, you obviously aren't going to get to know every student.
But showing up at a graduation and having at least this one fleeing one-on-one interaction with every last one of them is a sign that you care. And if you want to outsource that to AI, you just suck.
Show threadStephen Foskett3d ago
@ai6yr As someone who has attended quite a few college graduations I can say no one does a good job reading names. But having AI screw them up is a new low.
Show threadAutistiCritic3d ago
@ai6yr @cwgrody @MikeElgan Is “AI tool” a synonym for Sam Altman?
Show threadAedius Filmania ⚙️🎮🖊️3d ago

@ai6yr

Burning the planet fastest that anything before.

Show threadJL Johnson 3d ago
@ai6yr @MikeElgan Huge missed opportunity for the featured image to have extra fingers.
Show threadMaria Langer | 📝🛥️💎3d ago
@ai6yr @User47 @MikeElgan My last name was pronounced wrong at my high school graduation. It was the first time in my life my last name had ever been pronounced wrong in my presence. Of course, it wasn't screwed up by an AI. But seriously: my name is pretty simple. (Rhymes with hanger, not ranger.)
Show threadPlutarch3d ago

@ai6yr @MikeElgan

If I were the one in charge of this, I would've taken all of the money that would've gone into this stupid project, and used it instead to hire a local radio station; have them send someone out, and broadcast the audio of the ceremony, and interview students, teachers, etc. beforehand/afterwards/during-otherwise-dead-air/whatever.  That way, not only do these people get recognized properly instead of embarrassed, but they also get recognized by people who couldn't be there for whatever reason, or who never had any reason to be there and also just happened to be listening to the radio, etc.  Full disclosure: I have a GED, and I have attended graduations, but none of them were for me.  (That also means I have no bias here, because I've never had any experience like this that was either positive or negative, lol.)

Show threaddevSJR  3d ago

@ai6yr @MikeElgan

The name of the collage sounded familiar and the story funny enough. But I mixed it up.

Anyways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_(TV_series)

Oh, the irony is in the details.

Show threadKoen Hufkens, PhD2d ago

@ai6yr @MikeElgan This isn't only a technological fail this is plain disrespectful, insensitive, lacking any empathy. Basically not acknowledging your students' efforts.

You have to snort some serious AI glue to make that call.

Show threadAI6YR Ben2d ago
@koen_hufkens @MikeElgan Alas, so much AI glue sniffing happening in the corporate world. In fact, if you don't do AI glue sniffing, likely you will get the axe (IMHO)... just waiting for that day for me lol
Show threadzipkid - Breaker of Systems2d ago
@ai6yr
😰
@koen_hufkens @MikeElgan