I've noticed, as a student, that many college students - particularly those not in STEM/engineering fields - have an almost irrational hatred of AI. It's to the point where they'll mock you for using it, even when it provides such an insane productivity boost. I understand the disdain for trying to inject the concept everywhere, and like any new technology, it's apt to be used where it is unneeded, and mentioned when it is irrelevant.

But this luddite-like hatred needs also to be addressed. You can't turn your back on a helpful new technology just because it shakes things up. Students need to learn to use it more than constantly boo and ignore it. Especially those in non-STEM fields, where its usage might be more optional currently.

Everybody pays the price for AI, but relatively few benefit.

Power is more expensive because data centres are using so much of it. Climate change is a tougher problem to solve because we're trying to reduce emissions while the energy requirements of big AI companies is eclipsing that of some nations. GHG emissions are going up when they need to go down. Computer hardware prices are through the roof. Fresh graduates, including those in STEM, face uncertainty in a job market that's trying to replace inexperienced, unspecialized, non-experts (i.e. them) with AI. Many of them know how to use AI just fine, but that doesn't necessarily make them employable. You may dream of being a AI-powered super-developer, but the path to that job may go through entry level positions that become harder to find each day.

Critics of AI are not being irrational. They're paying the costs but not reaping the benefits and they don't see a clear path to changing that. I suggest you look into the history of the luddites and the industrial revolution. Today, we see the industrial revolution as a tremendous boon, but it wasn't that for everyone initially. Multitudes spent their entire lives being shafted before the benefits started tricking down. The real kicker is that only some of the people who suffered were luddites. Many were just like you. You can love a fission bomb for the beauty of its physics, but you'll suffer exactly the same fate as an nuclear abolitionist if one is dropped over your city.

> You can't turn your back on a helpful new technology just because it shakes things up

Watch them :)

Seriously though, this happens every time technology is introduced, for better or worse.

And while it's annoying, it's actually very helpful too, but you need to get further into your understanding than the emotion arguments people usually have front and center in their mind, because there is real criticism that has real value in there, it's just behind all the annoying knee-jerk reactions.

But again, this happens over and over, every time, seemingly in every community. Even HN has these soft spots, maybe not for AI but for example blockchain and cryptocurrencies are still subjects that somehow bring out these knee-jerk reactions to people (again, sometimes for good reasons, although the initial reaction masks the real cause).

Best we can do is listen and actually understand, instead of just brushing it away as "irrational hatred", because it always comes from somewhere, sometimes personal reasons, sometimes illogical reasons, but always because of something.

I use AI a lot for development, but I am not sure why students should "embrace" the new technology made to take the job they are studying for.

> particularly those not in STEM/engineering fields - have an almost irrational hatred of AI. It's to the point where they'll mock you for using it, even when it provides such an insane productivity boost.

What "insane productivity boosts" are non-coding fields seeing from AI? If anything, coding is the most affected space, and even there I'm not sure I'd classify it as an "insane" productivity boost yet.

Maybe they see it eradicating their job prospects and being used to cheat and invalidate their hard studying by others who want an insane productivity boost? That’s not fair to them if others are cheating and they’re learning properly.

I find my hatred of AI to be incredibly rational, and the cultlike veneration of the “insane productivity boost” it gives you to be truly irrational (whether or not that boost actually exists).

Productivity as the be-all-and-end-all of personal aspiration exemplifies what is rotten in our industry and society at large: more for the sake of more, faster for the sake of better, no matter the consequences and with certainty no mind for the quality.

You do realize luddites were people made unemployable and impoverished by new technology? Calling them luddites just proves their point.

i think 'shake things up' is a doing a lot of work to minimize the impact this tool will have for this demographic in particular. especially for non-STEM college students, so in theory students who read/write a lot and therefore are probably sick of reading a lot of mid-tier, averaging slop.