Hope for Desperate Grads: Humiliating Tech CEOs

“They deserve everything they’re getting.” (Boos.)

This sentiment, repeatedly echoed by students, captures the essence of recent university commencement ceremonies. Graduates have been vocally booing and heckling corporate executives who praise artificial intelligence, with the executives themselves appearing to be the only ones genuinely surprised by these reactions.

A series of viral videos has captured 2026 commencement speakers, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, receiving loud and persistent jeers from students. These outbursts occurred after speakers lauded AI, characterizing the technology as both unavoidable and essential. The widespread sharing of these videos indicates a profound resonance with young people navigating a challenging job market within an increasingly precarious global landscape.

“They deserve everything they’re getting,” stated Penny Oliver, a recent political science graduate from George Mason University, in an interview with The Verge. She added, “Some would argue they’re getting off kind of lightly. I’m not saying they deserve to get hurt, but it just shows a level of arrogance and a disconnect when you see that.”

Last week, Eric Schmidt encountered a chorus of boos at the University of Arizona as he advised graduates to embrace AI as an integral part of their future. He famously remarked, “When someone offers you a seat on a rocket ship, you don’t ask which seat. You just get on.” However, the underlying reason for the graduates’ fury should have been evident. As journalist Marisa Kabas succinctly articulated, “these young people have already been forced onto the ship and there aren’t enough seats.”

The preceding week, Gloria Caulfield, an executive from a property development firm, voiced her astonishment after experiencing a similarly cold reception from arts and humanities students at the University of Central Florida, where she had characterized AI as “the next industrial revolution.” Concurrently, at Middle Tennessee State University, Scott Borchetta, a music industry CEO renowned for his role in Taylor Swift’s early career, delivered a spirited yet condescending speech. He openly ridiculed AI critics and instructed students wary of the technology to “deal with it.” With graduation season still underway and online videos intensifying anti-AI sentiment, it is highly probable that these occurrences are not isolated incidents.

“Of course people are going to be mad and of course they’re going to boo. Why shouldn’t they?” Oliver questioned. She elaborated, “They just spent tens of thousands of dollars on an education that is supposed to get them more opportunities, and here comes this guy [Schmidt] who could never work another day in his life and still be very comfortable and well-off saying ‘Hey, you should really get on the bandwagon of this technology that’s going to replace you.’”

To many graduates, the speakers’ astonished and argumentative responses highlight a significant chasm between the fervent tech evangelists championing AI and the younger generation grappling with its numerous well-documented repercussions, which span from environmental impacts to the erosion of critical thinking skills. A particular point of contention for young people appears to be the underlying message: not only are they expected to accept this technology, which they perceive as the source of their existential anxiety and dwindling job prospects, but the speakers seem to imply they should also embrace it enthusiastically.

“It demonstrates a complete lack of being in touch with real people, and also it does not surprise me,” remarked Austin Burkett, a game designer who recently earned an MFA from the NYU Game Center, in an interview with The Verge.

Burkett counts himself among the fortunate few. Prior to graduation, he secured employment developing Pocket Bard, a mobile application favored by tabletop roleplaying gamers, a community generally known for its staunch anti-AI stance. He noted, however, that some of his former classmates have been compelled into precarious gig work, training the very AI models that are poised to displace them. He asserts that graduates are justified in their fury towards corporate executives who display a dismissive “adopt-or-die” posture regarding the technology.

“These are not the people who have to worry about rent, and they’re not the people who have to worry about their job being replaced,” Burkett further explained. “The people who are saying ‘it’s just a tool’ are the ones who can afford to say that. It puts the blame on the individual, and puts forth this myth that these institutions and systems and companies have no ulterior motive and no reasons to make a profit.”

It is worth acknowledging that student responses to commencement speakers advocating AI frequently differ based on the academic disciplines of the audience members. The most intense reactions captured in viral videos have primarily originated from students in liberal arts and humanities fields.

Among these graduates are many aspiring to enter creative professions, areas now confronting existential threats from generative AI tools. At CalArts, the renowned California art school celebrated for nurturing animation talent, President Ravi Rajan was booed off stage by graduating students. Rajan has drawn significant criticism for discontinuing creative programs and actively promoting AI adoption at the university through strategic partnerships with technology companies.

This surge of student anger coincides with a period where young people across most fields are experiencing considerable pressure from the tech and business sectors to integrate generative AI tools into their work. This occurs even as employers simultaneously leverage these very tools to rationalize hiring freezes and widespread layoffs. Although surveys indicate that students and Generation Z are among the most frequent users of AI tools, they also harbor deep skepticism towards Silicon Valley and have emerged as some of the technology’s most vocal critics.

This skepticism is hardly surprising, given that young people frequently observe the technology’s inability to fulfill its fundamental promises. For instance, at a Glendale Community College commencement ceremony in Arizona, the audience erupted in angry boos when the college president disclosed that the institution’s new AI system had failed to correctly announce over half of the students’ names as they approached the stage for their diplomas. Furthermore, The New York Times reported earlier this week that a significant nonfiction book by Steven Rosenbaum, exploring truth in the age of AI, was found to contain numerous fabricated or misattributed quotes, which were “hallucinated” by AI tools.

“Society is in the process of restructuring itself around a tool that simply doesn’t work,” writer Margaret Killjoy commented this week in response to these events. She drew a parallel: “If you needed to build a bridge, you wouldn’t hire a structural engineer who gets it right about 70% of the time. You wouldn’t read a history book that is 30% fiction but doesn’t tell you what 30%.”

It would be erroneous to overlook that a significant portion of the anger expressed by young people against AI is amplified through tech platforms designed to prioritize engagement metrics and foster brief, intense cycles of frustration. While viral videos can offer catharsis and effectively galvanize large groups, graduates like Oliver appear acutely aware that such outrage alone does not lead to tangible change without concerted action.

“I definitely think there’s a catharsis in it, especially at a time where it feels like there are never any consequences for rich people, ever,” Oliver stated, referring to the widely discussed viral videos. She continued, “I think it’s possible to take this outrage and channel it toward something impactful, but it doesn’t just spring up. People have to get together and say ‘let’s do something.’”

A concrete illustration of this channeled outrage is the widespread movement across the country opposing the construction of AI data centers. A recent Gallup poll indicates that seven out of ten Americans now object to the establishment of such facilities in their local communities, with nearly half of all proposed data center projects this year either being abandoned or postponed. The enormous energy consumption and environmental hazards posed by these data centers have provided tangible focal points for resistance against the tech industry’s multi-trillion-dollar AI expansion, and some graduates find encouragement in the significant role young people have played in this struggle.

“I think despite the urge to feel nihilistic about it, I do have a decent glimmer of hope, inspired by people my age and younger,” Burkett shared, citing a theater production penned by high school students motivated by the environmental issues stemming from AI. He added, “It’s inspiring to see that it’s not just people who have had this privilege to go through an undergraduate or graduate degree, but the youth who are coming up and feel very strongly about this.”