Students Boo Speakers Discussing AI at Commencement Ceremonies Students across multiple US campuses are turning their graduation day into a referendum on artificial intelligence, booing speakers who frame AI as an inevitable, even exciting, force just as they step into a shaky job market.

A season of boos

The pattern emerged in early May, when graduates at the University of Central Florida jeered real estate executive Gloria Caulfield after she called AI “the next industrial revolution” in her commencement address. Days later, at Middle Tennessee State University, music executive Scott Borchetta drew boos when he said “AI is rewriting production as we sit here,” retorting that students should “deal with it… Like I said, it’s a tool.”

By May 16, the backlash reached national attention at the University of Arizona, where former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was repeatedly drowned out as he described AI’s sweeping impact. Similar reactions followed when Glendale Community College’s president blamed an AI system for skipping several students’ names during the ceremony, prompting immediate jeers.

Graduates: anger at a shrinking future

Coverage describes “Gen Z’s AI backlash” as part of a broader surge in anxiety and anger about automation and layoffs. Surveys show Gen Z excitement about AI has fallen sharply, while resentment grows among students who chose majors before the generative AI boom and now see companies citing AI to justify job cuts. One analysis argues they are “not booing the technology,” but “the speech that announced their redundancy,” noting projections that AI could wipe out a large share of entry-level white‑collar roles and that AI‑linked job losses already skew toward younger workers.

Polling backs up the mood: roughly 42% of Gen Z say AI will harm job opportunities and wages for people like them, higher than any other generation.

Tech and establishment voices: embrace and adapt

Commencement speakers and tech leaders have largely urged adaptation. Schmidt told Arizona graduates that fears “that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating… and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create” are “rational,” but insisted “the question is not whether AI will shape the world. It will. The question is whether you will have shaped artificial intelligence.” At Carnegie Mellon, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argued AI will be a net positive that changes every industry and that “the answer is not to fear the future,” drawing no audible pushback.

Commentators say Silicon Valley still “can’t seem to read the room,” praising AI as “underhyped” while a generation facing a “ravaged job market” hears only a threat to already‑fragile prospects. For now, the boos suggest many new graduates are unconvinced that the promised AI future includes them.

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