Key Takeaways
- Commencement speakers at several universities repeatedly framed artificial intelligence as an inevitable, transformative force, prompting audible boos from graduating students.
- Critics argue the speakers ignore graduates’ real anxieties—soaring student debt, a fragile job market, and declining social mobility—while promoting a tech‑utopian narrative that serves corporate interests.
- Eric Schmidt acknowledged graduates’ fears that “the future has already been written” but urged them to “help shape artificial intelligence,” a response viewed as a classic “bootstraps” bromide.
- Evidence suggests a genuine slowdown in entry‑level hiring at firms using generative AI, though it remains unclear whether AI is displacing workers or merely providing a pretext for reduced recruitment.
- The author’s own commencement address at Bennington College deliberately avoided AI hype, instead emphasizing personal growth, the inevitability of life’s messiness, and the power of collective action to demand regulation and resist unchecked tech expansion.
Setting the Stage: A Troubled Commencement Season
The recent wave of commencement addresses has been marred by a recurring theme: wealthy technologists and CEOs using the podium to extol the limitless promise of artificial intelligence. As the author notes, “the big shots who have been brought in to inspire a next generation of graduates have used their speeches as opportunities to extol the limitless possibilities that artificial intelligence will bring.” Graduates, already confronting a shaky job market and tens of thousands of dollars in student debt, have responded not with applause but with loud boos, signaling a deep disconnect between speaker optimism and student reality.
Speaker Highlights: AI as the Next Industrial Revolution
Gloria Caulfield, a real‑estate executive addressing the University of Central Florida’s College of Arts and Humanities, declared, “the rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution.” Likewise, Scott Borchetta, CEO of Big Machine Records, told Middle Tennessee State graduates that “A.I. is rewriting production as we sit here.” These pronouncements framed AI as an inexorable force destined to reshape every sector, yet they offered little concrete guidance for graduates navigating uncertain career prospects.
Eric Schmidt’s Acknowledgment and the “Bootstraps” Reply
When former Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke at the University of Arizona, the tension became palpable. He paused amid the shouting and articulated the graduates’ fears: “that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating, that the climate is breaking, that politics are fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create.” Schmidt’s remedy—“The question is not whether A.I. will shape the world. It will. The question is whether you will help shape artificial intelligence”—echoes a familiar bootstrap mantra, urging individuals to adapt rather than questioning systemic forces that concentrate power and wealth.
The Underlying Grievance: Work, Not Wokeness
The author contends that the real issue is not a cultural clash over “wokeness” but a structural lack of opportunity. “The problem isn’t woke; the problem is work. It’s a lack of social mobility. It’s that college may no longer elevate a graduate to the middle class. It’s that nobody even bothers to pretend that a house, a good job and the ability to start a family are at all guaranteed.” This perspective reframes the graduates’ anger as a rational response to eroding economic security, not a mere rejection of progressive values.
Data‑Center Dystopia and the AI Hype Cycle
From the graduates’ viewpoint, hearing affluent elders describe a future “pulped by acres and acres of electricity‑sucking, water‑guzzling data centers” feels dystopian because it is. Companies are increasingly leveraging AI as a justification to automate entry‑level roles, effectively “trying to automate your future away.” The MIT Technology Review’s characterization of a “looming crisis in entry-level work” underscores the mismatch between AI hype and the lived experience of young job seekers.
Corporate Rhetoric and the Bot Fantasy
Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen amplified the anti‑human sentiment in a conversation with Joe Rogan, musing that a bot “never gets drunk, never gets sick, never gets high” and “never files H.R. complaints.” The quip—“It never boos a smug commencement speaker, either”—captures a sentiment among certain tech elites who view human labor as an inconvenient variable to be optimized away. Such rhetoric fuels graduates’ suspicion that their value is being reduced to a cost‑benefit calculation.
Empirical Evidence: Hiring Declines in the AI Era
A recent working paper from Harvard researchers adds weight to the anecdotal backlash, showing that “hiring for entry-level roles at companies that have adopted generative A.I. has dropped each quarter since 2023.” While it remains ambiguous whether AI is directly displacing workers or merely serving as a convenient excuse for reduced recruitment, the trend is clear: firms are pulling back on the very positions that new graduates most need.
A Personal Counterpoint: The Bennington Address
Against this backdrop, the author prepared to speak at Bennington College, where they earned an M.F.A. Rather than adding to the AI cheerleading, they chose a different tack: “I talked about the role their magical little college played in my life. Getting a master’s saved me; it gave me a bit of a foundation, perhaps a little authority in a world where I often felt like an impostor.” The speech emphasized personal transformation over technological prognostication, grounding advice in lived experience rather than speculative futurism.
Embracing Messiness: Advice Beyond the Résumé
The author urged graduates to accept the inherent messiness of early adulthood, noting, “I would love to give them advice about how to avoid the messiness of one’s 20s, but the messiness is the point.” A vivid anecdote illustrated this point: “That eyebrow pierce will leave a scar,” they said. “You’ll have trouble getting the barbell out and eventually someone will have to use tiny pliers to cut it out of your face.” Observing the audience, they realized roughly 30 % of the class would soon confront a similar predicament, reinforcing the idea that life’s imperfections are universal and instructive.
A Call to Action: From Boos to Organized Resistance
If the author were to address AI directly, they would validate the graduates’ worries while rejecting inevitability: “You are right to be worried. But none of this is as inevitable as it seems.” They invited listeners to recall past technological fads—blockchain, NFTs, Y2K fears—reminding them that hype often outpaces substance. The prescribed remedy is collective: demand regulation of tech companies, elect officials who will enforce it, and organize locally against intrusive data‑center projects. “Don’t just boo—do something,” the author concludes, transforming passive disapproval into active civic engagement.
In sum, the commencement season has exposed a growing chasm between tech‑optimist elites and a generation wary of AI’s promised utopia. Graduates’ boos are not mere rebellion against modernity; they are a reasoned response to precarious employment, mounting debt, and a fading belief that a degree guarantees stability. By shifting the discourse from inevitable disruption to actionable accountability, speakers—and society at large—can begin to address the real work‑related anxieties that define today’s youth.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/05/opinion/graduation-speakers-ai-college-commencement.html