University graduates are cursing and criticizing corporate executives who praise AI during their commencement ceremonies, and the only people who seem surprised by this are the executives themselves.
In a video stream, 2026’s inaugural speakers such as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt faced loud and sustained jeers from students after praising AI and describing the technology as inevitable and inevitable. These videos have clearly struck a chord with young people entering the bleak job market in an increasingly unstable country.
“They deserve everything they get,” Penny Oliver, a recent graduate in political science from George Mason University, told me. The Verge. “Some would say they are a bit out of touch. I’m not saying they deserve to be hurt, but it shows a level of arrogance and lack of communication when you see that.”
Schmidt was met with a chorus of boos at the University of Arizona last week when he taught graduates to embrace technology as part of their future. “When someone offers you a seat on a rocket ship, you don’t ask which seat. The reason for the outrage should have been obvious. As journalist Marisa Kabas put it, “these young people are already being forced onto the ship and there aren’t enough seats.”
Last week, Gloria Caulfield, an executive at a real estate development company, expressed shock after receiving a similarly frosty reception from arts and humanities students at the University of Central Florida, where she described AI as “the next industrial revolution.” At Middle Tennessee State University, Scott Borchetta, the music industry CEO known for helping launch Taylor Swift’s career, gave a loud and polite speech mocking AI criminals and telling students who criticized AI to “deal with it.” And with graduation season underway and online videos bringing anti-AI sentiment to a boiling point, it’s likely these incidents won’t be the last.
“Of course people are going to be mad and of course they’re going to boo. Oliver said. “They’ve just spent tens of thousands of dollars on education that should get them more opportunities, and here comes this guy. [Schmidt] who would never work another day in his life and continue to be comfortable and well off saying ‘Hey, you really should get involved in this technology that’s going to replace you.’
For many graduates, the surprised and contradictory reaction of the speakers reveals a great divide between the technologists pushing hard for AI and the youth who are left to face its many well-documented consequences, which threaten everything from the environment to our critical thinking skills. Young people seem especially contemptuous of the attitude on display: Not only do you have to accept the technology we’ve created that is the cause of your existential dread and rapidly fading job prospects, the speakers seem to say, but you also have to love it.
“It shows a complete lack of connection with real people, and it’s not surprising,” Austin Burkett, a game designer who recently graduated with an MFA from the NYU Game Center, told me. The Verge.
Burkett is one of the lucky ones. Before graduating, he got a job working on Pocket Bard, a mobile app used by tabletop gamers, who are often strongly against AI. But he says some of his classmates have been forced to train AI models to replace them, and that graduates have a right to be angry at corporate executives who have a smiley “take it or die” attitude toward technology.
“These are not people who should be worried about rent, and they are not people who should be worried about their job being changed,” added Burkett. “These people who say ‘it’s just a tool’ are the ones who can’t say that, it puts a person to blame, and it puts the myth that these institutions, programs and companies have no private goals and no reasons to make a profit.”
To be fair, student reception of AI-enhancing speakers often varies depending on the size of the audience. The strongest reactions seen in the streaming videos came mainly from liberal arts students and humanities students.
Many of those graduating include students hoping to enter creative careers that face the threats posed by AI productivity tools. At CalArts, President Ravi Rajan was ushered from the stage by graduates of the famous California art school, well known as an incubator for talent in the animation industry. Rajan has faced heavy criticism after ending creative programs and pushing for the adoption of AI at the university through corporate partnerships with technology companies.
Student anger comes at a time when young people in many fields are facing intense pressure from tech and business to use AI tools for productivity — even as employers use those same tools to justify hiring freezes and layoffs. While polls show that students and Gen Z are some of the most frequent users of AI tools, they are also very skeptical of Silicon Valley and have become the biggest critics of the technology.
That is not surprising because young people constantly see the failure of technology to fulfill its basic promises. At Glendale Community College’s commencement ceremony in Arizona, the room was filled with anger after the college’s president revealed that the school’s new AI system failed to read more than half of the students’ names when they walked on stage to receive their diplomas. And earlier this week, The New York Times reported that a massive nonfiction book written by author Steven Rosenbaum about truth in the age of AI contains many false or falsified quotes about AI tools.
“Society is in the process of reorganizing itself using a tool that doesn’t work,” wrote writer Margaret Killjoy this week in response to these incidents. “If you needed to build a bridge, you wouldn’t hire a structural engineer who repairs it about 70% of the time. You wouldn’t read a history book that is 30% fiction but doesn’t tell you how much that 30% is.”
It would be remiss to ignore that much of the anger that young people are expressing against AI flows from technology platforms that promote engagement metrics and short-term cycles of crippling anger. Viral videos can be cathartic and a great way to bring people together, but graduates like Oliver seem to be well aware that that doesn’t translate into material change unless people stand up and take action.
“I think there’s a catharsis in it, especially at a time when it feels like there’s never been any consequences for rich people,” Oliver said of the viral videos being talked about a lot. “I think it is possible to take this anger seriously and transfer it to something that has an impact, but it doesn’t just happen, people have to come together and say ‘let’s do something.’
One concrete example is the large movement that has sprung up across the country to oppose the creation of AI data centers. According to a recent Gallup poll, seven in ten Americans now say they oppose the construction of these centers in their area, and nearly half of all proposed data center projects have been canceled or delayed this year. Unprecedented energy demands and environmental threats posed by data centers have created a network of rallying points for those who oppose the excesses of AI tech in the world of billions of dollars, and some graduates are encouraged by the role played by young people in this fight.
“I think that despite the desire to feel silly about it, I have a glimmer of noble hope, inspired by people my age and younger,” Burkett said, referring to a theater production written by high school students inspired by environmental problems caused by AI. “It is encouraging to see that it is not only people who got this right to get undergraduate or graduate degrees, but young people come and feel empowered by this.
