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    Arizona students boo former Google CEO Eric Schmidt as he talks about AI during graduation speech
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    Arizona students boo former Google CEO Eric Schmidt as he talks about AI during graduation speech

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    39 Comments

    2. NewsCards on

      > Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also gave a graduation speech last week at Carnegie Mellon. He struck a more positive tone, arguing that AI would create more opportunities for young people to build anything they wanted.

      Well, they’ll sure have a lot of free time to do that **as all the entry level jobs disappear**, Jensen.

      What’s your snarky response to that, Jensen?

      What’s going to happen when all the mid to senior-level employees age out, Jensen?

      Who’s going to replace them, all zero young people who have received job experience from the non-existent entry level jobs, Jensen?

    3. mrwrrrmwrmrmrmrw on

      It’s not customary to tell graduates at commencement “you’re all screwed, heheheh.” 

    5. BlazinAzn38 on

      I can’t remember the last time any sort of technology was just shoved at us constantly, can anyone? We’re constantly being told it’s inevitable and then forced to use it. They tell us it will take jobs and then are surprised people hate it. There’s just such a large scale effort to bring this shit up everywhere at every moment

    6. Evening-Researcher on

      Hmm I wonder, is reddit or Mr. Schmidts PR team out in full force?

      This is the third post in technology I’ve seen about this debacle, and it’s somewhat fortunate for the [alleged rapist](https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-03-06/former-google-chiefs-spying-sex-assault-lawsuit-sent-to-arbitration) Eric Schmidt.

      It’s almost like he wants headlines talking about this and not how he allegedly is a rapist, and reddit is more than willing to help curate his image for him.

      I wonder if this thread will get nuked now too since his alleged rape is now mentioned

    7. imlesinclair on

      The students booing AI adoption are not Luddites waving pitchforks at the moon. They are responding to the smell of the thing.

      AI is being introduced to the public with the manners of a landlord and the vocabulary of a TED Talk. We are told it will make everything more efficient, more innovative, more competitive, more inevitable. Very good. Lovely words. They gleam nicely under conference lighting. But outside the ballroom, graduates are looking at the job market and asking a much less decorative question: where, exactly, am I supposed to enter?

      That is the part the evangelists keep skipping over. They talk about productivity gains as if productivity were a weather system, something that simply arrives and blesses the fields. But gains go somewhere. If AI makes companies richer while young workers lose the first rung of the ladder, then this is not progress. It is enclosure with a chatbot interface.

      The answer is not to stop AI. That is fantasy. The race is real. Countries, companies, schools, hospitals, banks, and governments are going to use it because the strategic advantage is too large to ignore. But there is a difference between advancing a technology and marching society into it like livestock.

      If AI is powerful enough to reshape the knowledge economy, then it is powerful enough to fund the transition it creates. That should be the bargain.

      If you lose your job because of AI, there should be income support. If you cannot get a job because the entry-level work has been automated, there should be a pathway into paid training and real placement. If companies save millions by replacing labour with automation, part of that surplus should go into a displacement fund. If data centers draw on public infrastructure, communities should receive more than noise, heat, and a brochure about innovation.

      This is not anti-AI. It is the only pro-AI position that does not require pretending people are stupid.

      AI competitiveness is real. So are social morale, political stability, career ladders, public trust, and the basic dignity of not being told to “adapt” by people whose adaptation plan is stock options.

      A society that sacrifices all of that in the name of speed may not become more competitive. It may become brittle. And brittle things do not lead revolutions. They crack.

      So when students boo, I do not hear ignorance. I hear a generation recognizing the absence of a social contract.

      Advance AI, yes. But tax the gains. Protect the displaced. Preserve the ladder. Fund retraining that leads somewhere real. Make the machine pay rent.

      Otherwise, do not be shocked when people look at the future being sold to them and decline to applaud.

    8. SirTiffAlot on

      >”I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you. There is a fear,” Schmidt said, stopping briefly as the shouts intensified. “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 question is not whether AI will shape the world. It will,” Schmidt said. “The question is whether you will have shaped artificial intelligence.”

      Read the room guy, you’re hearing but not listening

    9. DeathSpiral321 on

      “Why does everyone hate this new technology that we’re forcing down everyone’s throats and promises to eliminate millions of jobs?!”

    11. AntifaSuperSoldier13 on

      Misleading headline

      “Students’ boos grew louder when he mentioned AI.”

      They were already booing him

    14. def_tom on

      It’s almost like these people (CEOs) are completely out of touch with reality.

    16. Gold_Map_236 on

      He’s lucky all he got was boos. These bastards deserve rotten veggies thrown at them…. And that’s the warning

    18. YoshiTheDog420 on

      Coming to a graduation to hype up your former companies investments to the group of people those investments threaten is a choice.

    19. ohitsallpeaches on

      AI is just such a fucking joke and in my mind it is really the next cause of a global economic disaster that’ll make COVID look like a sick day off work. Let’s say every single country just says fuck it and goes full steam ahead on AI and we integrate it into every facet of our lives. Who is making money anymore? Entry level jobs don’t exist because AI removed the need for those jobs. Service work doesn’t exist because people don’t have jobs and can’t afford to go out. Will countries enact a UBI? Doubtful for a myriad of reasons but especially because there isn’t any money to spend on a UBI. Nobody is paying taxes if they don’t have a job, don’t own land, and don’t buy goods. Corporations aren’t paying taxes because the ONLY reason these data centers are in such a rush to be built is because they are getting tax breaks.

      Really, I need someone who is pro-AI to tell me what they realistically think the world will look like in 10-15 years if we keep on letting AI be the focus.

    23. ItsSzethe on

      I was there. He had to switch sides on the podium because they were shouting right in his face.

    25. RiffRaffCatillacCat on

      Glad to see more working class Americans finally realize these Billionaires are not on our side.

      They are waging a class war, and have been for decades. It’s about time we fight back.

    28. Fake_William_Shatner on

      Companies should pay taxes for college educations because they see the ones that benefit from the education. 

      Well, they were. That ship has sailed. 

      Let’s just make rules that benefit the most people, make the rich pay down all the debt because we said so. 

      In fact. We can just change everything. There’s this one trick billionaires hate; class consciousness and socialism. 

      Or you can learn to enjoy the dystopian hell that the AI will bring with unfettered capitalism. 

    29. Possible-Tangelo9344 on

      Maybe it’s time for grads to rush the stages these billionaires are standing on

    32. Aggravating_Pie9132 on

      best TOPIC to talk about, i hope she got all the grades she deserves

    33. Wayofchinchilla on

      What a great idea to go up on stage in front of a bunch of young impressionable students who spent thousands of dollars to get a degree and tell them all it’s all pointless none of you will have jobs and then be shocked when they boo at you.

    34. runed_golem on

      I’m in the boot camp that AI/ML is an extremely powerful tool when used appropriately (but at the end of the day it’s literally just linear algebra). However, the reliance on LLMs and the general initiative of “we need AI for everything” has set a poor precedent for the actual uses for AI/ML (like in identifying cancer cell for medical research. Or as a building block for more advanced meteorological forecasting).

    36. user365user on

      Isn’t bro in the Epstein files? Or is he just a regular out of touch (alleged) rich rapist?

    37. raazurin on

      This is worse than the last one in some ways. He didn’t just say that AI is the future. He basically also said “you better get used to it.” Like fuck him, how about we completely reject it.

    38. Zestyclose_Koala_593 on

      At this point just get rid of guest speakers at graduation. Who actually cares to hear what a bunch of older people, who have no clue of the current hellish job market for new grads, think about anything pertaining to “opportunity”? Colleges should save the 5-figure checks they send these clowns and spend it on resources students will ACTUALLY use in the school.