He was on stage and had a mic. I don’t know that the students had a lot of options to make their voices heard in the situation. And since folks like Schmidt already have access to channels to spread their opinions and this was the students’ graduation I think they get a pass.

This is exactly the meme: “I am being silenced! says the man with the microphone, book deal, and celebrity-level media access.”

AI promotional strategies are profoundly and uniquely illiberal.

AI leaders are not interested in open debate and they have demonstrated this again and again.

Shouting this person down is the appropriate, humane response.

Okay, "new_account_100", you don't have to reply to every single comment in this thread lol. Chill a bit.

I echo their sentiments 100%, I doubt I'm alone here either.

I do, too, but a throwaway account busting into a conversation and screaming "everyone listen to me, me, me!" is a bit obnoxious, you know?

I'm only a throwaway account because they ban you for making well-received comments against AI.

We don't do that. We do ban accounts for egregiously breaking HN's guidelines, as you've already done repeatedly with this account.

Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We love you!

I love you too

Speaking over people on a microphone and loudspeaker isn't open debate either

Sure, but where is this mythical "open debate" where nobody important ever shows up?

Schmidt paying out millions in political donations isn't open debate. Schmidt having a speaking role at a commencement without anyone able to respond to him isn't "open debate". This is purely a monologue. There is no debate that was going to be had in the first place because Schmidt, by virtue of the location and occassion, wouldn't allow a response.

OK Charlie Kirk

Shouting people with power down is the closest to an open debate you will get with them.

No one with power like Schmidt will join in an open debate with you and me (well, unless you are one of the 9-figure millionaires that might be around HN), they circulate around others with similar power, they don't engage with the powerless, they have no need for it. They are not having a debate with us about rolling out AI, they just wield their power and do it unto us.

Getting some backlash is the bare minimum, if our democratic systems worked we could use democratic processes to curtail their power, unfortunately those systems are also tilted very heavily towards the ones with outsized power already. If you leave people without a voice, shouting the powerful ones down is the least you should expect.

These guys are obviously both tone deaf and totally unconcerned with the desires and fears of the next generation of hopeful knowledge workers. To have the audacity and callousness to stand in front of a group of people you are hoping to destroy for profit, and talk about the technology you are going to use to do this… I’m surprised these guys are only getting booed.

He could have stopped reading his script and addressed the obvious concern. He didn't. The students clearly wanted him to address their concerns, not hear a sales pitch.

And he's probably there as the inspirational, senior, mature, leadership figure. That failed hard.

Booing is a valid form of debate. We could shout "your arguments are not made in good faith and you are a bad actor" but a boo accomplishes the same thing and is far more effective.

This was a speech, not a debate. When you don’t like someone’s speech, this is how you can show it. People have been doing it for as long as people have given speeches.