College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/college-students-drown-out-ai-praising-commencement-speeches-with-boos-deal-with-it-one-speaker-fires-back-as-students-heckle-positive-pitches-for-ais-role

by iancmceachern • 2 months ago

379 378 2 months ago

tomshardware.com

bogzz• 2 months ago

The kids are alright.

tyleo• 2 months ago

Every one of these posts about boos at commencement speeches has one of these comments near the bottom. I feel like I’m failing some pop culture quiz. What does this mean?

bananaflag• 2 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kids_Are_Alright_(song)

ahoy• 2 months ago

AI is largely unpopular outside of the tech & business worlds. Most laypeople see it as falling on a spectrum between unwanted and annoying (google getting worse, AI chatbots proliferating in every app and site) to actively harmful (jobs being replaced by ai).

The fact that comments agreeing with this sentiment get downvoted here isn't a huge surprise, hn is firmly inside the tech/business world.

jfyi• 2 months ago

It's a song by "The Who". Though given the controversy their lead songwriter (Pete Townshend) has been through, I personally would refrain from quoting him on the topic of kids.

JKCalhoun• 2 months ago

As others point out, a song by the band, "The Who". But it's since come to be a phrase to suggest that the upcoming generation (the kids) are going to be okay.

As opposed to the more common refrain of "the kids these days…" (and then append some generational gripe like, "are just weed-smoking, lazy, game-playing, phone-staring, TikTok-headed, etc…"

fractorial• 2 months ago

Schmidt, who served in various capacities as CEO, Chairman, and technical advisor to Google and its parent company Alphabet across several decades, ...

It is gratuitous to say “several,” no?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt

dfxm12• 2 months ago

Just like Mickey Rooney's span of being the top box office draw from 1939-1940. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UDQfFtiOk4

koolala• 2 months ago

From all the articles I see about him I feel like he's constantly paying money to get in the news / social media.

lithos• 2 months ago

AI Bros are spending too much good will being obnoxious about fancy approximation algorithms, when their purpose in real AI will be lizard brain/reflex type actions.

The next AI winter can't happen soon enough. (Note each past AI winter did give us new tools just like this one will, it's just a shame that it'll be an excuse to worsen customer support)

tdeck3• 2 months ago

Unfortunately this AI ship has the US economy lashed to its bow, and the moment it begins to founder we're all going to have to hold our breath for a while in the best case. Thought leaders are all out of ideas that don't have AI in them (and even that ideation is probably being delegated to an LLM these days).

sarreph• 2 months ago

Discussed here (2 days ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48177785

dijksterhuis• 2 months ago

other recent related submissions based on searching for "commencement"

- Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt booed at Arizona U commencement speech https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48204166 - 26 points | simonebrunozzi | 5 hours ago | 6 comments

- Why College Grads Are Booing Their Commencement Speakers https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48200823 - 6 points | 65 | 13 hours ago | 1 comments

- Graduates are booing pep talks on AI at college commencements https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48196546 - 116 points | 1vuio0pswjnm7 | 19 hours ago | 179 comments

- Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48177107 - 163 points | wrxd | 2 days ago | 167 comments

- Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches [video] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48175130 - 4 points | mgh2 | 2 days ago | 0 comments

- University of Arizona students boo Eric Schmidt's AI cheerleading https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48171852 - 103 points | latexr | 3 days ago | 1 comments

- UCF Commencement Speaker Draws Boos After A.I. Remarks https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096674 - 11 points | reaperducer | 5 days ago | 13 comments

- Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096674 - 182 points | cdrnsf | 9 days ago | 217 comments

- UCF Commencement Speaker Booed When Calling AI Next Industrial Revolution [video] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48094523 - 6 points | latexr | 9 days ago | 2 comments

teekert10• 2 months ago

And here yesterday (different source): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48198281

ghaff2• 2 months ago

Correctly or not (probably to some degree correctly) new grads are hearing AI is a major reason why they're having trouble finding jobs which is simultaneously 1.) Probably mostly has always been the case--I no longer have the vast sheaf of rejection letters when I ever got one at all and 2.) Is anecdotally actually the case for a variety of reasons that also include pandemic overhiring and probably an out-sized AI effect on junior engineers, probably especially programmers.

xmcp123• 2 months ago

I think the overhiring sentiment is largely accurate, but not as it’s frequently presented.

It’s not purely over hiring, it’s that many of these companies are doubling down on AI spend(in terms of model creation, hardware investment, etc), and need to allocate their funds differently.

So it’s not AI efficiency causing the layoffs, it’s AI resource allocation.

And the reason they don’t have the funds to invest? Overhiring.

A lot of the companies doing layoffs (META, Microsoft, Amazon) aren’t just using AI coding tools, they’re trying to be the hardware and be the models behind the AI.

And they see the failure to do so as an existential threat.

AnimalMuppet• 2 months ago

I think it's more than that. They've heard for most of their lives that college is the way to a good job. Now they're graduating, many of them with debt, and as they do, they're hearing that AI means that the jobs won't be there. And now, at their commencement, someone is talking about AI. One of the people responsible is talking about AI!

Who thought that this was going to go well?

chadgpt37• 2 months ago

this isn't the first instance of society failing to deliver on its promises - I'm almost 40 and still no house. What makes this time different, I think is the question?

ghaff2• 2 months ago

That's all fair. Whether or not AI is the/a primary factor in the challenge in getting entry-level/junior roles especially in tech and especially in relation to the milk and honey situation the past decade+, I'm sure a lot of grads struggling to get interviews believe it is. Which makes a commencement speaker associated with Google and AI a rather tone-deaf choice.

weezin• 2 months ago

Agreed, AI is a convenient excuse. If we had covid level interest rates these graduates would have a lot easier time finding a job. Companies are downsizing their bets and counting pennies to cash flow to invest in AI infra, which they wouldn't need to do in a low interest environment.

Y-bar• 2 months ago

“There is a fear in your generation 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.”

The total lack of self-awareness that Schmidt and his cohort of tech billionaires has significantly contributed to all this is screaming even louder than the boos.

nemomarx6• 2 months ago

His next line was about agreeing with that fear so his messaging is just incoherent to me. I guess very "well we did it anyway, get ready for your jobs to go away and to deal with a big mess we made"?

redwall_hp• 2 months ago

"Some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."

MSFT_Edging2• 2 months ago

Tim Robinson in the hotdog costume loudly exclaiming "we're all trying to find the guy who did this"

mghackerlady5• 2 months ago

God I love that video (sketch? I forgot where it came from but I originally saw it on youtube)

dude250711• 2 months ago

They just have not considered the massive shareholder value being captured, which under capitalism is certainly guaranteed to trickle down, as it had been historically proven time after time.

internet_points• 2 months ago

</s> ?

spacechild17• 2 months ago

The parent comment was so sarcastic, it actually defeats Poe's law.

overrun112• 2 months ago

Most Americans directly own stocks and a college graduate is even more likely to. This isn't the 1860's so a lot of these critiques of capitalism are anachronistic. The reality is "shareholders" are fairly ordinary people and not a tiny and mysterious group of elites.

spacechild17• 2 months ago

First, trickle-down economics is a modern neo-liberal concept.

Second, most people just do not earn enough to invest a significant amount of money in stocks. It's a system that largely benefits the rich. The more money you already have, the more you can invest.

analogpixel3• 2 months ago

Tennessee State University suggested AI was "rewriting production as we sit here" and told his audience to "deal with it" as they jeered him in response.

Guess it doesn't take much to see what's under the mask.

tdeck3• 2 months ago

For folks that didn't read the article, it seems he was talking about music production.

whizzter• 2 months ago

Yeah, people in art production are far far more negative about AI than most sceptical developers.

I wouldn't be surprised if a huge percentage of concept artists are out of jobs or changing specialization these days (Creating a throwaway image for a pitch or imaging document can probably be as easily conveyed through a prompt and the people looking at them are probably often not savvy enough to appreciate the difference).

Where the music industry goes will be interesting, knowledgeable musicians are way too into fiddling/toying to feel any need for AI tools, but since music is pretty much an industry these days fed by promotion, it isn't far fetched that bedroom "AI" artists can leapfrog established ones.. the question is if it'll stick if they can't reach the pinnacles (megahits is part of it, but concerts still seem to matter quite a bit, and an AI won't help you perform even if Milli Vanilli might disagree).

analogpixel3• 2 months ago

that must be a good message:

- you all like music enough to go to a four year program and spend lots of money to study it.

- you all probably have been creating music since you were a child and really love it.

- well....

- people don't actually like music like you, and just want content; non-stop content.

- we now have a magic button that can make content by ripping off every previous artist we've trained our models on.

- now that everyone has access to this magic button, music has become even more worthless and the only people that'll make money from it are the people running the streaming services like spotify.

- if you do happen to create some original content, we'll just suck it into our giant copy machine and use it to out you you.

- good luck, have fun, and make sure to pay those student loans back.

teekert10• 2 months ago

So what is he supposed to say? "Ok let's stop developing AI so you can all have the exact job you trained for?" That hasn't been the case for decades.

When I left my eduction I could sequence 200 basepairs using gels. Now I process terabytes of NGS data on supercomputers. I dealt with it, I enjoyed it.

Edit: Not saying these kids have nothing to rage against, they can't afford houses, are uninsured, they face a huge wealth gap in the population, possible a war, the country is tearing apart... But why so anti AI specifically?

alistairSH2• 2 months ago

It's a college graduation speech, he's not required to touch on any specific topics.

"AI is going to upend your nascent adulthood and career" is pretty tone-deaf when delivered by a semi-retired billionaire who was was neck-deep in a conspiracy to reduce wages in his industry barely 20 years ago.

markus_zhang2• 2 months ago

He can shut up?

cyclopeanutopia2• 2 months ago

Do you seriously don't understand why?

tdeck3• 2 months ago

But why so anti AI specfically?

Because society is structured so that every time some labor-saving innovation comes along, it's used as a tool to drive down wages and reduce workers' bargaining power. And they leaders of these industries aren't exactly hiding it.

You might be able to game it in the short term, but It's not like anyone is seriously thinking this will reduce the totality of our efforts in the long term. Employers are already champing at the bit to reduce headcount and increase output targets.

The only hope these people have to offer in their bleak future is that if you play your cards right, you might be one of the few crabs to climb over the other crabs and escape the bucket before it's dumped into the kettle. It's giving "we need one person from each department to stay on and train the India team after the layoffs" vibes.

nancyminusone• 2 months ago

so you can all have the exact job you trained for

Couldn't be any more ironic than being delivered at a graduation ceremony. An equal message could be:

"You know all that time, effort and money you just spent learning something over the last few years? It's useless now. Lamo. Congrats on wasting your life."

sumeno2• 2 months ago

Because people like Eric Schmidt are constantly talking about how AI is going to make the careers they just spent 6 figures learning to do obsolete.

How delusional do you have to be to give a pro-AI speech to the generation most likely to be directly fucked over by AI if your other predictions are true?

analogpixel3• 2 months ago

But why so anti AI specifically?

because they just spent $200k on an education that this man is telling them is worthless now, and how that's a good thing for them.

Maybe these "thought leaders" should be showing the kids unsure about their future a path forward instead of just spouting the AI hype.

But why so anti AI specifically?

also, because one college did it and got famous on the internet , and now all the kids want in on it.

rdedev• 2 months ago

You are missing the point of why AI is being hated so much. Sequencing was just a tool for you that made your job easier. Right now it almost feels like CEOs can't wait to use AI to fire everyone

pickleglitch• 2 months ago

But why so anti AI specifically

I think maybe AI is just the last straw for many people. If capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production, AI represents the ultimate dream of the capitalist: the elimination of the need of human labor entirely. Whether or not it can achieve that is secondary to the goal itself.

Grads are facing a brutal job market where much of what they just spent several years of their lives learning is going to have little to no value to employers. It's not like your gradual transition from sequencing with gels to using supercomputers over the long course of a career.

It's like you just spent 4 years learning to sequence with gels, and now someone is telling you that was a waste of time, and you should just stop complaining and deal with it.

anentropic2• 2 months ago

we could just ban so-called AI "music"

nothing bad would happen, no one would lose anything

neaden• 2 months ago

To your edit, it's because the commencement speakers are praising AI and probably not praising the Iran war, the wealth gap, or high housing prices. I would imagine if a commencement speaker did praise those things they would get boo-ed too.

dogleash• 2 months ago

So what is he supposed to say?

How to deal with it. Spitting "deal with it" at the audience just says he was so unprepared that he didn't even realize he was literally hired to give them that send-off guidance. But being skilled and notable in a field doesn't make people insightful.

tedggh• 2 months ago

Eric Schmidt’s speech was particularly bad regardless of the subject, his condescending tone alone deserved the booing.

Ecstatify• 2 months ago

Not the only issue people have issues with:

Ritter filed a lawsuit in November that alleged Schmidt, a former chief executive and chairman of Google, “forcibly raped” her while on a yacht off the coast of Mexico in 2021.
She also claimed they had sex without her consent during the 2023 Burning Man festival in Nevada.

ref: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-03-06/former-goo...

bckr2• 2 months ago

When you have everything but can’t even keep your hands to yourself. Shameful.

dylan6044• 2 months ago

Trying to wrap my head around how one can still be around someone in 2023 after what happened in 2021. This confusion no way justifies what happened nor am I blaming anyone. I just don't understand it.

dyauspitr3• 2 months ago

So we’re just going to believe her? Why?

yubblegum• 2 months ago

Seriously, I just skimmed that LA Times article and wondering why isn't HN discussing this claim made by her?

quote: "She further alleged that Schmidt had built a “backdoor” to Google servers with a team of company engineers that allowed him to spy on her and anyone with a Google account."

lokar• 2 months ago

Condescension is one of his core skills. Ask any long time googler

bckr2• 2 months ago

Oh yeah, he’s the one who said glue people are useless

RickJWagner• 2 months ago

I’d be anxious, too, if I were just starting my career. Those kids just invested a lot of time and money in an education, and the payoff looks a lot like a gamble.

But AI is going to help, not hurt in the long run. Technology always makes things better and cheaper in the long run. Poverty diminishes, free time increases, things truly do get better over time. This’ll be a short term bump, but it’ll be a steep one.

goda90• 2 months ago

Your viewport is too zoomed out. When you zoom in on the march of human progress, you'll find a lot of spikes in the amount of human suffering along the way. As we start to hit the limits of what Earth can sustain, do you really feel confident that the next spike will dissipate quickly?

nemomarx6• 2 months ago

How short term do you think it'll be, and how confident are you in that?

If it takes until these kids are in their 30s their careers will be pretty affected. "maybe the next generation of kids after you will be fine" isn't super comforting.

JohnFen3• 2 months ago

If the genAI cheerleaders are correct, and this is a change much like the industrial revolution, then things will be horrible for the average person for multiple generations.

cyclopeanutopia2• 2 months ago

Technology always makes things better and cheaper in the long run.

How so?

pesus6• 2 months ago

Are you willing to join in the suffering in the meantime? That's what everyone saying "it'll get better in the long run!" seems to ignore.

TrackerFF• 2 months ago

Yeah, it is incredibly tone deaf.

I can fully understand some executives trying to hype up AI with the "It'll create more jobs!" mantra, but as it happens, the AI boom coincided with the post-COVID layoffs (from the hiring frenzy we saw back then) - so even though AI might directly not be responsible for less junior/grad hiring in the various industries, the vibe is that it is still responsible for the tough times college grads are facing.

GrinningFool• 2 months ago

I am starting to see so much consistency in the "it's not AI, it's overhiring" commentary that it's actually starting to feel like a narrative constructed to allay concerns about AI impacts. At this point it's a "pandemic overhire correction" that the industry has been doing for two years, and is accelerating.

ryandrake4• 2 months ago

Yea, I don't know how long they're planning to milk the "pandemic overhiring" excuse. Ten years? In 2030, we'll still be seeing headlines like "Company X lays off another 10,000 workers due to overhearing ten years ago..."

nemomarx6• 2 months ago

The over hiring explanation will only last so long - you can't really say we were still over hiring after about 2023, right?

So by next year you'd expect that shedding to be mostly done I think. and then companies no longer hiring juniors to train up will be obviously ai related

bix62• 2 months ago

Imagine bringing a new technology into the world, telling everyone it’s gonna take everything from them including possibly their literal lives, and then telling a bunch of kids to get on board or they’re gonna miss the billionaire rocket ship! lol these people are so out of touch.

alistairSH2• 2 months ago

From the same guy who was part of a conspiracy to suppress wages in his industry. He's completely tone deaf. Not that I'm surprised coming from a billionaire tech executive.

footy• 2 months ago

imagine using that rocket ship analogy in a world where OceanGate happened. You don't get on a moving ship without asking questions.

hermannj314• 2 months ago

"After my speech for the troops about how we are losing in Iran, my speech to children with cancer about how we've gutted research, sure I can then give a speech to people entering the job market about how AI is ruining the job market"

Perfect, that's exactly the message of despair we want to send! (How I imagine picking these speakers goes at every college campus)

forgetfreeman2• 2 months ago

The first step in resolving any problem is acknowledging that it exists. Ignoring real issues in favor of comfortable narratives is insane.

jerf2• 2 months ago

College students had 4+ years to learn about the real issues before the graduation ceremory, and the rest of their lives after it. Rubbing every problem in the world in their face at a graduation ceremony is just gauche.

To everything a time and a season. Not every second has to dedicated to "problems".

smallmancontrov10• 2 months ago

The "boos" are an indication that kids finally understand who to blame. In a dark time, that's a ray of hope: the kids are alright.

throwaway7t4h7• 2 months ago

"We're all trying to find the guy who did this" - guy dressed like hotdog

RIMR3• 2 months ago

Okay, show me where these commencement speakers are acknowledging that AI is a problem.

ceejayoz2• 2 months ago

Commencement is a time of celebration and accomplishment. The students are well aware of the existence of the problem; that's the exact reason they're booing.

It's like going into your therapist's office and having them trauma-dump on you. Their issues might be entirely legitimate; it's still not the time or place.

For comparison, see Mr. Rogers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=907yEkALaAY

saghm7• 2 months ago

Some of the loudest hostile voices were reserved for Schmidt’s comments on AI, however. “You can now assemble a team of AI agents to help you with the parts you could never accomplish on your own,” comparing it to a “seat on a rocket ship.” He also suggested that the students will be the ones to “shape artificial intelligence,” even if they “don’t care about science… because AI is gonna touch everything else as well.”

The Google CEO claiming he and other tech billionaires gave you a seat on a rocket ship via AI is not "acknowledging a problem". Booing something you consider a problem is a form of acknowledgment though, so I'm not sure how you can conclude that the speaker was the one doing what you suggested and not the audience here. Do you really think "AI is like a ride on a rocket ship" is an acknowledgment of issues rather than a "comfortable narrative"?

BigTTYGothGF• 2 months ago

How come the problem isn't that "lots of people really don't like AI"?

motbus3• 2 months ago

i think we should not think they are gullible but they want to make they think they are. they want a message through and the message is that they are creating a threat and they will use it.

palmotea2• 2 months ago

Perfect, that's exactly the message of despair we want to send! (How I imagine picking these speakers goes at every college campus)

AI-era commencement speeches should totally be gloating "Ha, ha! I'm going to get immensely rich, and most of you fools are going to end up in the gutter! Sucks to be you [sticks out tongue]! Great for me, me, me! AI. Is. Awesome."

InsideOutSanta• 2 months ago

I bet "deal with it" is exactly the kind of inspiring message these kids were hoping to hear.

ath3nd• 2 months ago

They will deal with it alright.

It's only so many speeches like this before the boos turn into other things.

mplanchard3• 2 months ago

Your comment really drove home for me the lack of empathy and humanity in these speeches, even neglecting the AI stuff. These young people are celebrating a real accomplishment and a life milestone. They’re about to enter a world where their decisions will shape our society. In that context, a speech like this is just gauche.

ryandrake4• 2 months ago

None of these people even had to mention AI in their speeches. They could have just done the normal, generic "Dream big, believe in yourself, attaboy" kind of speech and then gone back to their 3rd homes in Malibu.

But no, they just had to both mention it AND rub everyone's noses in it. They know they've already won, and are arrogantly making sure the next generation doesn't forget who's meant to be on the lower rungs of the social and economic totem pole.

Either that, or they actually think that everyone shares their positive outlook on AI and have totally failed to read the room.

breadsniffer• 2 months ago

They’re so disconnected from reality, living in their own bubble.

IncreasePosts2• 2 months ago

I don't know if you're aware but a big meme at Google from when Eric was CEO was when he was encouraging all googlers to install Nest in "one of your homes"

tavavex4• 2 months ago

Their behaviors feel so detached and alien to me. Here are my hypotheses:

- They love AI and are so self-absorbed that they struggle to think of other people's perspectives. They only view it through their own lens and are oblivious to it. So, to them, others' opinions should mirror theirs, which is why it doesn't register for them.

- They know of the impacts their ideas will have, but think that the positives will somehow eventually trickle down to the commoners and the negatives will be minimized or only affect people that 'deserve it'.

- They genuinely despise young people and this is just a socially acceptable way of expressing their hatred - they understand everything.

Which one of the three do you think it is? Or are there other reasons?

noobermin• 2 months ago

It's tempting to assume malice, I don't doubt some of them really are so spiteful, but I assume most are just that out of touch.

saghm7• 2 months ago

For what it's worth, this might not be a recent phenomenon only. My dad has been saying for decades that the speaker at my mom's college graduation (Paul Tsongas, if I'm remembering correctly) was incredibly depressing and basically just said "the world sucks out there, good luck going into it".

gowld2• 2 months ago

Mine was "The world sucks. We need brilliant people like you to save it. Please help."

threethirtytwo2• 2 months ago

what do people need to hear? inspiration or truth? Personally I want the cold awful truth. But I think humanity in general thrives on inspiration and delusion.

vanviegen• 2 months ago

Cold awful truth is fine, but people do need some perspective.

watwut3• 2 months ago

What people need and should hear depends on the situation. When you visit a dentist, you don't need to hear about how to properly build a house, no matter how truthful it is. You should hear truth about state of your teeth. Or, if you are having a wedding speech, you should not pontificate about how to keep the bathroom clean - even if what you say is cold hard truth.

Second and importantly, it is not like these commencement speakers would be concerned with truth or were trying to convey truth in their speeches. The dilemma here is not "truth versus inspiration/delusion". Schmidt was not selling truth, he was selling his product and was trying to make people believe things that will make him earn more. Schmidt want trying to sell inspiring vision of the world for the students, he effectively put them into a passive-you-dont-matter role in his vision.

hackable_sand• 2 months ago

The truth cannot be either cold nor awful.

It appears you prefer dressing up your feelings in stoicist aesthetics.

Like a snake pretending to be a statue.

amanaplanacanal• 2 months ago

What they should be saying is "yes this new technology is going to take away all your jobs, which is why I am fighting for universal basic income".

numron-dev• 2 months ago

AI is hitting junior positions way more than senior ones right now, and students with no professional experience are exactly who that affects most. They're walking into a job market where the kind of role they were supposed to start in is shrinking.

That said, booing a speaker mid-speech wouldn't be my move on my own graduation day. But I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't be grinding my teeth in my seat.

nemomarx6• 2 months ago

Once the rest of the crowd is booing it seems pretty safe to join in.

cute_boi• 2 months ago

Needs more booing. These so-called rich people have the gall to say, “You guys are going homeless, and there is nothing you can do about it. However, please use AI.”

analog312• 2 months ago

The same people who are being boo'd for being AI tycoons would have been cheered by the same students 4 years ago for just being tycoons.

I hope everybody reflects on the fact that it's the same people.

nehal3m• 2 months ago

Am I out of touch? No, it’s the children who are wrong.

analog312• 2 months ago

I'm not blaming the kids. They are a reflection of society as a whole. It's just a statement of how a significant portion of society have changed their views of tech billionaires over the span of just a few years.

b40d-48b2-979e• 2 months ago

No? What is this ad hominem?

Trasmatta• 2 months ago

This isn't true at all

dsr_• 2 months ago

If your behavior doesn't change when you realize the world has changed, that's a bad sign.

So, the change in behavior by the students is a good sign.

josefritzishere• 2 months ago

Read the room pal.

scotty79• 2 months ago

"Your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer."

There's an interesting duality. If you are someone people can target with relentless online harassment, you should be mortally scared to share your honest opinion.

If you are not, like Eric Schmidt's, there's absolutely no reason to care what other think.

Fraterkes• 2 months ago

Apart from being tonedeaf, this stuff just strikes me as very lazy. Who still needs to be told that AI is new and transformative? Getting the privilege of monologueing to a crowd of people on one of the biggest days of their lives, and then just throwing out a bunch of obvious cliches... pretty damning imo.

skrebbel2• 2 months ago

I think this is the key point. HN commenters on this thread and related ones like to assume everybody’s an activist luddite but actually I bet the majority of the audience is just rolling their eyes at the amount of open doors being kicked in while being forced to sit still and listen to that drivel.

bluefirebrand• 2 months ago

Which is why they booed the mention of AI specifically, surely.

It's because they're bored of the speech, not because they're angry at the hearing praise for the technology that is poised to fuck up their careers and futures

You can be pissed off about AI without being an "activist luddite" you know

eschulz• 2 months ago

Absolutely, great graduation speeches are unique and from the heart. They don't sound like a sales pitch for the latest trend or thing, and mentioning AI shows how clueless theses speakers are.

mghackerlady5• 2 months ago

I think the one steve jobs gave at stanford is a great example

OutOfHere4• 2 months ago

By rejecting AI, these students have a particularly bad future ahead. Rejecting reality doesn't make reality bend to you. Due to this rejection, they risk having few jobs, then no jobs. The Schmidts of the world have negative sympathy for such deniers.

mekdoonggi3• 2 months ago

They aren't rejecting it at all. They are expressing their opinion on it which is hugely negative. Why? Because it's a useful technology, but so far has succeeded in taking jobs away, poisoning minds, art, and politics, hoovering up all the capital, and getting shoved into every possible thing.

The billionaires tell us over and over, "Get on board or you'll starve!" and I am certain they will be stunned when they meet the rude end of a pitchfork.

Edit: I did not intend to advocate violence, just warn about public opinion. Please do not harm anyone.

OutOfHere4• 2 months ago

They aren't rejecting it at all. They are expressing their opinion on it which is hugely negative.

It is one and the same.

I am certain they will be stunned when they meet the rude end of a pitchfork.

Is that a threat? Also, do you understand how the police and government work, and whose side they will take? Even if magically the government were on the side of the luddites, which they won't be, China would then take over the country hurriedly by its embrace of AI. This is why the US military is embracing AI. I don't think you or the graduates have the faintest idea of how aggressively and pervasively China is using AI.

in taking jobs away

The people should be asking for basic assistance benefits, and the graduates should striving to automate more so that even more people can have these benefits. This is the only answer that could be fully consistent with reality. Doing repetitive dumb work is appropriate for ants, not humans. These graduates want a salary without competitively delivering value, and that's not going to happen.

chadgpt37• 2 months ago

Please don't use HN to advocate for violence.

madnewgrad263• 2 months ago

It’s a real feeling… lot of hatred for older gens now …

ks2048• 2 months ago

Schmidt will get over it. In the coming unrest/wars, he will profit nicely from all his investments in weapons and surveillance.

Kapura2• 2 months ago

nah, he's gonna be in the line of head spikes

512akHaf• 2 months ago

He keeps his Gulfstream fueled and ready to go to Cyprus, where he bought a passport. In Cyprus there is an international "elite" of Western and Russian oligarchs.

0xbadcafebee• 2 months ago

Meanwhile they're doing all their homework and tests with AI

johndough• 2 months ago

Goomba fallacy https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Goomba_fallacy

SirMaster4• 2 months ago

That's what I'd be curious to know. Are they the same people who are booing it who are also using it?

ryeights• 2 months ago

Not necessarily contradictory. If all your peers are using AI, you might feel you have to use it too to avoid falling behind… especially with curved grade thresholds

boelboel• 2 months ago

Why put in the effort if a potential employer can't tell.

somelamer567• 2 months ago

Unfortunately, this is typical of the feral business overclass. It seems that the rampant Trump regime, the advent of AI, the long-term decline of the United States, coupled with the complete impunity the business class were granted during the 2008 crisis, has gone to their heads. The hate saddens, but doesn't surprise me.

romaniv3• 2 months ago

GenAI is the first technology that I've ever seen that is actively rejected by young adults and fervently pushed by people over 55.

It seems Eric Schmids of the world think they (in their 70s) have more say about the future of these students than the students themselves. That is very unlikely.

ryandrake4• 2 months ago

My own conspiracy theory is that AI, and the increasingly authoritarian government swings, are the Boomer generation's last shot at freezing the world in time and ensuring our world is shaped to their vision long after they're all gone. The thing that generation fears the most is that we're all going to just move on from them when they're dead, and finally progress past this "1970-2020" economic/cultural stasis that we've been stuck in for basically my entire life.

amoss• 2 months ago

kind of wild that you think there has been no shift in culture between 1970 and 2020

barebearcountry• 2 months ago

mxuribe4• 2 months ago

I think you stated better what i was trying to babble in another comment here. :-)

And you might think it is a conspiracy theory...but the sentiment i'm seeing (obviously a limited data set to only folks i engage with) seems to align so much to it...that if not fully true, *feels* quite close to it - even if not an intentional thing.

gruez4• 2 months ago

and fervently pushed by people over 55.

Source? I think you're conflating "pushed by CEOs" (which might lean on the older side) with "pushed by people over 55".

lenerdenator11• 2 months ago

CEOs are hired by boards. Boards are hired by shareholders. Most publicly-traded American companies have their shares held by pension and retirement funds. Pension and retirement funds exist to send money to people over 55.

jordanb• 2 months ago

I dunno I'm on some forums with normal older people and they're much more likely to post AI content from YouTube or paste "I asked AI" quotes from chatgpt or even post their own "prompted GAI illustrations" as one guy put it.

Every time there is push back from younger posters followed by a bit of a generational faceoff.

I think boomers are still inclined to see technology as exciting space-race stuff. As a millennial I remember when the Internet was good but that also feels like a distant memory.

For younger people technology has been dark patterns and skinner boxes and increasingly imposed on them against their will from COVID tela-learning to AI mandates.

romaniv3• 2 months ago

The article we're commenting on lists several examples of the dynamic and it aligns with my personal experience offline and online. There are also stats like these:

https://on.substack.com/p/the-substack-ai-report

"Publishers 45 and over were more likely to use AI than those under 45."

I can, of course, dig up more supporting data, but that is not as important to me as making sense of what I'm actually seeing.

https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2025/09/17/views-of-ais-...

"Younger Americans are generally more likely than older Americans to think the increased use of AI will worsen human abilities."

mxuribe4• 2 months ago

I think it might be because some folks from the older generation have a sense of entitlement...mostly because they often lived through a glorious period that en masse has been beneficial to them...They expected flying cars, etc...So, now, this time they'll get their AI servants...So, its sort of an expectation (for some from this older generation) that the world will keep giving them lots of good (well, good for them!) things in life.

My sincere apologies if my comments are offensive to anyone (of any age group)...but i do agree that I'm seeing way more older people in support of the AI evolution, and many many more younger people fearing it. My age is far closer to the older generation, but lots of times, i'm feeling what i see lots of younger folks feeling: fear.

ElevenLathe2• 2 months ago

I think it's much less about generation than about material conditions. It's easier to convince someone that AI is going to be good for their bottom line if they are already retired, or at least have a significant chunk of savings (and therefore investments) and a job higher up the food chain/org chart than a new college grad does. For most working class people, age is a necessary but not sufficient condition to have these things, but there are plenty of older workers who are feeling the fear as well.

dyauspitr3• 2 months ago

This is not even close to the reality on the ground. But America’s enemies would be smacking their lips and rubbing their hands together imagining a regressive youth.

lenerdenator11• 2 months ago

Follow the money.

People over 55 are most concerned about one thing: retirement. Retirement, by definition, requires living off of money that you did not labor for. In the US, you do this by holding assets that yield returns on your investment. Over the last half-century, we've made returning that yield the main objective of publicly-traded corporations to the complete exclusion of everything else.

People like Schmidt were hired by boards, who were elected by shareholders, with the hope that they'd increase returns. The biggest shareholders in most American companies are pension and retirement funds, followed by funds that are not necessarily retirement funds but are often used by individuals to back IRAs and 401(k)s.

When the executives of Schmidt's generation were hired, they were incentivized with stock options instead of cash. Their compensation was directly tied to how much money was returned to shareholders.

When you maximize a return to a shareholder, you do that by minimizing the costs of the inputs to the business. One of those costs is labor. Payroll, benefits, the costs of the office space people work in, etc.

GenAI offers shareholders - which can be seen as synonymous with people who are approaching retirement or who are retirees - a promise of massively reducing labor costs. In the minds of a lot of institutional investors, they could have companies where the same amount of value is created with only c-suite and executive-level employees working with teams of AI agents that, over time, will become cheaper and cheaper. What was once hundreds or thousands of employees is now a few dozen.

Now, where does this leave young and middle-aged people? In a place where they have a wildly uncertain future. But that's not the retiree's problem. They want the villa on the golf course in Florida, and by the time you have real social problems resulting from a population with no hope for the future, the retirees will be dead or too old to care.

Schmidt's cohort, for their part, have enough money to deal with those problems in the near to mid-term. Or, at least, they think they do.

EDIT:

Love getting downvoted for what is, essentially, a factual statement.

QuercusMax5• 2 months ago

Since when does retirement mean living off money you didn't labor for? The whole point is the opposite - you can only retire if you have enough resources/income (pension, 401K, gold bars, etc) that you can support yourself without working.

In the US we have a problem that a lot of seniors can't afford to retire.

mikestew3• 2 months ago

Retirement, by definition, requires living off of money that you did not labor for.

“Factual statement“, that’s hilarious. Nothing wrong with an op-ed, but with an opening like that you might want to step back and re-examine those “facts”.

triceratops2• 2 months ago

Retirement, by definition, requires living off of money that you did not labor for

So like you just get handed money to retire without ever working a day in your life? Please tell how this works I want some of that.

jedberg2• 2 months ago

Your argument is a bit flawed though. Most retires get income from a few places: Social Security, 401K, or rental property.

401k's will do great with AI replacing all labor. But social security will disappear and so will rental income, because no one will be able to afford housing anymore.

colechristensen• 2 months ago

Oh don't you know? The young people don't know how to use technology any more. They've never had computers they control. The new hires and the nearly retired have the same computer skils.

Locked down OS iPad kids don't know how to use computers because the manufactures and their parents wouldn't let them.

The Matrix' 1999 "peak of human civilization" wasn't wrong, the world is moving to a society built by a small number of wizards owned by billionaires.

JohnFen3• 2 months ago

fervently pushed by people over 55.

It is?

I know very few people in that age group who are excited by this stuff.

empath75• 2 months ago

This is pretty wrong. There are a lot of people who _hate it_, but it is still a minority. And older people dislike it more than younger people.

https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2026/2/27/public-opinio...

Feelings on it are quite mixed, but people who hate it and boosters are both incredibly loud about it.

intended2• 2 months ago

AI optimism is rising, but so is anxiety.
Globally, the share of respondents who say AI products and services offer more benefits than drawbacks rose from 55% in 2024 to 59% in 2025, even as the share saying these products make them nervous increased to 52%.

intended2• 2 months ago

It’s also the one tech that has been picked up by porn but not video games.

I’m kinda surprised by that. Gaming and porn were the ones that spearheaded tech uptake.

furyofantares• 2 months ago

Folks of retirement age or nearing it are largely free to either play with it or not depending on their interest. This segment may present as largely positive if those without interest get to just opt out.

For folks in the middle of their career or earlier, or just starting out, it's more of a labor vs capital thing where capital doesn't care if skills that have been invested in are devalued, and raises expectations where skills are amplified. This segment will likely present as largely negative.

Younger still, high school and earlier, probably fairly free again to play with it or not depending on interest, but subject to temptation to use it to cheat, and subject to teacher influence not to.

arjie2• 2 months ago

Schmidt's speech to students goes:

The future does not simply arrive. It gets built in laboratories, in dormitories, in startups, in classrooms, in legislators, and the people building it will be you and people like you.

This prompts you to say:

It seems Eric Schmids of the world think they (in their 70s) have more say about the future of these students than the students themselves. That is very unlikely.

This doesn't seem like an accurate read on what the Eric Schmidts of the world think.

romaniv3• 2 months ago

Here is a quote that is far more representative of his overall message:

“When someone offers you a seat on the rocketship, you do not ask which seat, you just get on.”

Ferret7446• 2 months ago

It's really quite simple. AI is threatening to take their jobs. Everyone gets defensive when their livelihood is on the line.

Most technologies offer new opportunities to young adults.

isityettime• 2 months ago

You can watch Schmidt's commencement speech here, at 2h:13m:05s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1eM3jv0vWY&t=7985s

It seems like they start booing him pretty close to the start, and pretty often.

steelkilt5• 2 months ago

If I were an adversary of the U.S. I would encourage anti-AI sentiment among young people, to my strategic advantage.

mpalmer• 2 months ago

They don't need much help, the industry's incentives are not aligned with the public interest.

steelkilt5• 2 months ago

Disruption, by definition, has winners and losers and the losers tend to be more visible, more vocal, and more immediate than the winners.

bigstrat2003• 2 months ago

That assumes that there is benefit to be had in all this AI craze. So far, none has yet materialized.

steelkilt5• 2 months ago

Yesterday I needed to create an SDS (material safety data sheet) for one of my products. This would usually take me a few hours, maybe half a day. An agent did it for me in 5 minutes. This example isn’t unique; for a small business owner, AI is a quality of life improvement.

panny• 2 months ago

I wonder how many of those booing used AI to write their term papers. From the teaching side, I hear AI has become an epidemic of students scamming their way into degrees.

mixmastamyk3• 2 months ago

Curious! https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...

ChrisArchitect• 2 months ago

2 days old news OP;

[dupe]

The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48188310

Eric Schmidt booed at University of Arizona after praising AI

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48172419

Students boo commencement speaker after she calls AI next industrial revolution

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096674

Multiple commencement speakers booed for AI comments during graduation speeches

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48177107

An AI Hate Wave Is Here

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48173318

ludicrousdispla• 2 months ago

If you don't want to be booed at while yapping about AI during a commencement speech, then maybe you shouldn't be doing that in the first place.

deaux• 2 months ago

This is like the 4th post I've seen on here about the exact same event.

NDlurker• 2 months ago

I thought Fauci's comments were pretty good. Just common sense stuff about using critical thinking when confronted with misinformation/disinformation.

1hr 36min

https://www.youtube.com/live/RyWsFYj6380?si=p2W6ih3USKdyDLY1

matonseca• 2 months ago

A commencement speech should leave people motivated, not feeling like they’re about to be economically replaced before even starting their careers.

SirMaster4• 2 months ago

How many of those booing used AI to do some of their homework?

honeycrispy• 2 months ago

What are you trying to say? That AI benefited the students because they skipped their homework?

SirMaster4• 2 months ago

I am trying to understand how many of the students are complaining about AI when they themselves may have been using it a great deal. Because that seems hypocritical.

NoSalt• 2 months ago

Next time just let AI give the damn speech and be done with it ... LOL.

trynumber9• 2 months ago

I suspect general attitude to AI will split along those who had to apply for jobs in the post-AI world of automatic resume generation and filtering and those who didn't.

softwaredoug• 2 months ago

Tech execs made choices that made the public hostile to AI. They told everyone they were going to lose their jobs a not participate in the upside (implication: they get all the wealth). They cozied up to a corrupt administration that stripped public benefits while enriching themselves (now from tax dollars). They forced towns to accept environmentally toxic data centers that take their water/power

We’re all going to suffer the economic consequences of being left behind in AI (and other fields) all because execs wanted to double down on privatize the gains / socialize the losses.

philipwhiuk2• 2 months ago

They told everyone they were going to lose their jobs

They didn't just tell everyone, they stopped hiring and started firing despite already making double digit YoY profits.

soundworlds• 2 months ago

Totally. As I've commented elsewhere, they thought it would be a great time screwing over artists and other culture works to make quick bucks and outrun the law.

Turns out that culture workers are a big chunk of who sets the narrative for the mainstream, and especially younger generations.

gos93• 2 months ago

Cotton plantation slaves drown out cotton gin-praising introduction speeches with boos

Seamstresses drown out sewing machine demo speeches with boos

The serf class really thinks they’re “upper middle class” don’t they

arjie2• 2 months ago

All right, I read the Eric Schmidt speech and it's fine https://xcancel.com/Jason/status/2056413992369676293?s=20

It's not "out of touch" or rubbing everyone's noses in it or any of the other nonsense that people are talking about. It's got a pretty clear thesis: this is a revolutionary technology of a kind that many of us thought impossible even within this last decade; and it hasn't been fully defined what its use and shape will be for humanity; and then there's a note of optimism in it.

As far as I can tell this is a pretty decent commencement speech. It's not "disconnected from reality" or "living in a bubble" or "spiteful" or any of these other phrases that people are using.

A commencement speech has to address the elephant in the room: this present revolution. It has to exhort the students on to something: which this aims to do. And it has to present challenges in order to do so: this does that as well.

pesus6• 2 months ago

It is absolutely disconnected from reality. An old billionaire does not in any way understand what new graduates are feeling and fearing about AI and its impact on the world. He has not existed or lived like any normal person does for decades at this point, and holds significant blame for the current state of tech/AI and everything that comes with it.

mixmastamyk3• 2 months ago

I heard a clip of it and it wasn’t the words per se that were offputting but the tone of delivery.

billbrown• 2 months ago

There was an effort to disinvite him as soon as it was announced that he was the speaker.[1] And then when that failed, activists passed out flyers encouraging students to boo Schmidt during his speech.[2] This all took place before he set foot on campus because of alleged sexual harassment.

This wasn't about what everyone wants it to be about.

[1] https://tucson.com/news/local/education/college/article_078e...

[2] https://tucson.com/news/local/education/college/article_ab7e...

gizzlon4• 2 months ago

He wasn't the only one being boo'd for AI though. I heard a podcast where they played clips from at least 3 or 4 different ones

heathrow83829• 2 months ago

"Deal with it" is the response these CEOs give.

Well, don't be surprised when society starts to regulate or even outright ban AI and data centers. Companies will need to "deal with that".

College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos

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