7 ms·

GenZ grads say college degrees a waste of time/money as AI gets into workplaces

25 points by samdung 1y ago

slaw 1y ago
AI stands for Actually Indians. Office jobs are moving to India.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  I don't get this meme. Who is doing this? To the extent I'm seeing anyone successfully replaced en masse by LLMs, it's Indian IT consultancies.
  - Loranubi 1y ago
    some random news, there are more - https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-just-walk-out-actually-1-000-people-in-india-2024-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-just-walk-out-actual... - https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/ai-app-scam-philippines-call-centre-b2731397.html https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/ai-app-scam-philippines-c... - https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/14/20805676/engineer-ai-artificial-intelligence-startup-app-development-outsourcing-humans https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/14/20805676/engineer-ai-arti...
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      None of Amazon Just Walk Out, Nate or Engineer.ai used GPT-class LLMs. Pre-ChatGPT (2022)? Sure. Meme applies. Today, it doesn't make sense--the closest comparison for AI's coding output is that of a mediocre offshore IT outsourcer.
  - adaptbrian 1y ago
    I just cut 30,000 in managed services b.c I can self host the solution myself on a 300/yr droplet. The folks that were servicing us in the 2nd year (india) won't have the account now since I can do it myself.
  - loco5niner 1y ago
    Albertons/Safeway is laying off my relative and a bunch of others and moving their work to India.
h4ck_th3_pl4n3t 1y ago
Relevant: Humans need not apply (2014) [1] [1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU https://youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
nicbou 1y ago
Reminder: The New York Post is a rag. Look at the front page before treating any of what you read as journalism.
- nxm 1y ago
  And yet the only one that printed the Hunter Biden story. I trust NyPost more than activists at Washington Post
  - netsharc 1y ago
    Your comment made me look into the whole mess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controvers... (of course Wikipedia is probably "manufactured narrative", right?). Looks like it's another attempt of finding dirt, but whoever was doing it, put so much of made-up dirt in that laptop, that proper journalists saw it as an "Elvis spotted with aliens" story, even NYPost journalists didn't want anything to do with it: > According to an investigation by The New York Times, editors at the New York Post "pressed staff members to add their bylines to the story", and at least one refused, in addition to the original author, reportedly because of a lack of confidence in its credibility. Of the two writers eventually credited on the article, the second did not know her name was attached to it until after The Post published it. The fact that you trust this sort of journalism makes me assume your trust is based on what you find favorable...
    - TMWNN 1y ago
      So on the one hand the New York Post is "a rag" as nicbou said, but on the other hand its reporters' judgments are reliable. Got it. If you'd bothered to keep reading in Wikipedia, you'd have seen (from after all the shouting subsided): >Former Politico reporters Marc Caputo and Tara Palmeri said in January 2025 that, because of "dumb decisions of cowardly editors", they were told "Don't write about the laptop, don't talk about the laptop, don't tweet about the laptop". Caputo said the Bertrand story about the 51 former officials had a "terrible, ill-fated headline ... because the Hunter Biden laptop appeared to be true". In 2019 the campaign of a rival Democratic candidate for the 2020 presidential election gave Caputo opposition research on Burisma and Hunter Biden but "That story was killed by the editors, and they gave no explanation for that either", he recalled. After that, read <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_letter>.
sinuhe69 1y ago
"Their degrees are already obsolete" -> I don't understand this attitude. Do they expect to have special knowledge after a bachelor's degree? Or do they think that just asking an AI what to do is the way to create better AI and a better future for us humans? A bachelor's degree is like an extended grade 13. With a master's degree, one can start working independently, or as we jokingly say, "know where to ask and what to kook for!" College should teach us the basics of how to think critically, how to solve problems, and how to organize our work materials; it should enable us to grow and tackle more academically demanding problems, not a training for a specific job. These are skills that are extremely valuable no matter what the technological advances are. And when you see that, the cost of a college education in the U.S. and some other developed countries is just ridiculous. So I see it as a sign of frustration and disappointment rather than in a literal sense.
- MattPalmer1086 1y ago
  It's a depressingly common confusion that the purpose of education is to be stuffed full of facts. If that were the case, then libraries and search engines would already have made us obsolete. But I do get the frustration with going into huge debt. And we have made obtaining a degree a requirement to get even quite basic jobs now.
- xeonmc 1y ago
  Alternatively, it could be seen as a sign of a failed college education.
peterbecich 1y ago
It is a privilege to attend college and learn there. It exists on a different plane than strictly meeting job requirements; I think it is unfortunate when people reduce it to merely that. Young people are under a lot of pressure and these statements may just be venting. That being said, it is a privilege that is getting very expensive for many people. If the claim is that all of the knowledge can be gained online, I will counter that is the difference between popular-ABC and real-ABC for any given subject ABC. The college forces you to round out your skill set into subjects you might otherwise ignore.
randomcarbloke 1y ago
gullible and opposing higher education, they've speed-run their way to becoming boomers.
triknomeister 1y ago
It's kind of counterintuitive, but AI means you actually have to learn even more logical thinking. That doesn't mean Bachelor's degrees need more material, but that, we need to have more of logical thinking and expression. Because you need to be able to tell AI in an efficient manner what you want.

25 points by samdung 1y ago

slaw 1y ago

AI stands for Actually Indians. Office jobs are moving to India.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
I don't get this meme. Who is doing this? To the extent I'm seeing anyone successfully replaced en masse by LLMs, it's Indian IT consultancies.
- Loranubi 1y ago
  some random news, there are more - https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-just-walk-out-actually-1-000-people-in-india-2024-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-just-walk-out-actual... - https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/ai-app-scam-philippines-call-centre-b2731397.html https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/ai-app-scam-philippines-c... - https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/14/20805676/engineer-ai-artificial-intelligence-startup-app-development-outsourcing-humans https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/14/20805676/engineer-ai-arti...
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    None of Amazon Just Walk Out, Nate or Engineer.ai used GPT-class LLMs. Pre-ChatGPT (2022)? Sure. Meme applies. Today, it doesn't make sense--the closest comparison for AI's coding output is that of a mediocre offshore IT outsourcer.
- adaptbrian 1y ago
  I just cut 30,000 in managed services b.c I can self host the solution myself on a 300/yr droplet. The folks that were servicing us in the 2nd year (india) won't have the account now since I can do it myself.
- loco5niner 1y ago
  Albertons/Safeway is laying off my relative and a bunch of others and moving their work to India.

h4ck_th3_pl4n3t 1y ago

Relevant: Humans need not apply (2014) [1] [1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU https://youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

nicbou 1y ago

Reminder: The New York Post is a rag. Look at the front page before treating any of what you read as journalism.

nxm 1y ago
And yet the only one that printed the Hunter Biden story. I trust NyPost more than activists at Washington Post
- netsharc 1y ago
  Your comment made me look into the whole mess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controvers... (of course Wikipedia is probably "manufactured narrative", right?). Looks like it's another attempt of finding dirt, but whoever was doing it, put so much of made-up dirt in that laptop, that proper journalists saw it as an "Elvis spotted with aliens" story, even NYPost journalists didn't want anything to do with it: > According to an investigation by The New York Times, editors at the New York Post "pressed staff members to add their bylines to the story", and at least one refused, in addition to the original author, reportedly because of a lack of confidence in its credibility. Of the two writers eventually credited on the article, the second did not know her name was attached to it until after The Post published it. The fact that you trust this sort of journalism makes me assume your trust is based on what you find favorable...
  - TMWNN 1y ago
    So on the one hand the New York Post is "a rag" as nicbou said, but on the other hand its reporters' judgments are reliable. Got it. If you'd bothered to keep reading in Wikipedia, you'd have seen (from after all the shouting subsided): >Former Politico reporters Marc Caputo and Tara Palmeri said in January 2025 that, because of "dumb decisions of cowardly editors", they were told "Don't write about the laptop, don't talk about the laptop, don't tweet about the laptop". Caputo said the Bertrand story about the 51 former officials had a "terrible, ill-fated headline ... because the Hunter Biden laptop appeared to be true". In 2019 the campaign of a rival Democratic candidate for the 2020 presidential election gave Caputo opposition research on Burisma and Hunter Biden but "That story was killed by the editors, and they gave no explanation for that either", he recalled. After that, read <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_letter>.

sinuhe69 1y ago

"Their degrees are already obsolete" -> I don't understand this attitude. Do they expect to have special knowledge after a bachelor's degree? Or do they think that just asking an AI what to do is the way to create better AI and a better future for us humans? A bachelor's degree is like an extended grade 13. With a master's degree, one can start working independently, or as we jokingly say, "know where to ask and what to kook for!" College should teach us the basics of how to think critically, how to solve problems, and how to organize our work materials; it should enable us to grow and tackle more academically demanding problems, not a training for a specific job. These are skills that are extremely valuable no matter what the technological advances are. And when you see that, the cost of a college education in the U.S. and some other developed countries is just ridiculous. So I see it as a sign of frustration and disappointment rather than in a literal sense.

MattPalmer1086 1y ago
It's a depressingly common confusion that the purpose of education is to be stuffed full of facts. If that were the case, then libraries and search engines would already have made us obsolete. But I do get the frustration with going into huge debt. And we have made obtaining a degree a requirement to get even quite basic jobs now.
xeonmc 1y ago
Alternatively, it could be seen as a sign of a failed college education.

peterbecich 1y ago

It is a privilege to attend college and learn there. It exists on a different plane than strictly meeting job requirements; I think it is unfortunate when people reduce it to merely that. Young people are under a lot of pressure and these statements may just be venting. That being said, it is a privilege that is getting very expensive for many people. If the claim is that all of the knowledge can be gained online, I will counter that is the difference between popular-ABC and real-ABC for any given subject ABC. The college forces you to round out your skill set into subjects you might otherwise ignore.

randomcarbloke 1y ago

gullible and opposing higher education, they've speed-run their way to becoming boomers.

triknomeister 1y ago

It's kind of counterintuitive, but AI means you actually have to learn even more logical thinking. That doesn't mean Bachelor's degrees need more material, but that, we need to have more of logical thinking and expression. Because you need to be able to tell AI in an efficient manner what you want.