Of Course Students Are Booing AI At Commencement Ceremonies

There is a fear [graduates jabbering]

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 is fractured,

and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create.

And I understand that fear,

Guys, I'm gonna make this my ringtone. [laughs]

Oh. This is incredible.

And Schmidt's not even the only speaker

who has received this kind of response

from graduating students,

the very people who are supposedly

wholeheartedly embracing this technology.

These are high-profile wealthy executives

who are entirely insulated,

them, their families, their children, their grandchildren,

from the effects of AI now and future on the workplace.

These people are not concerned about AI taking their jobs.

These people are not graduating into a market

where everyone's going,

I don't need an assistant.

Have you heard of OpenClaw?

Of course everyone's flipping out at them.

There is an entire category of our population

that doesn't know how they're gonna get work experience

to all of a sudden not be considered irrelevant

by our tech overlords.

Of course they're booing.

There's an argument, don't boo me,

[Leah chuckles] that they're not wrong,

that this could be the next Industrial Revolution.

But it's sort of like saying,

So get ready to head into those factories

and lose a finger, right?

Like, it's the wrong message

to the wrong set of people. It's the wrong tone-

Yes. I would say.

Definitely the wrong tone. What's interesting about

this to me is that we know college students are using AI-

Yeah. But like you said,

they're pissed because they are graduating

into a job market where people aren't hiring,

and there's a couple reasons for that.

Like, I don't think it's just that AI is already

taking entry-level jobs. No.

It's happening on some level,

but not super, super widespread quite yet.

It's also that people aren't leaving jobs

because they're scared,

and so there's just not a lot of movement

in the market right now. It's not an elastic market,

and you're looking at the Iran War

and you're looking at rising gas prices.

People aren't changing things up

during an election year historically.

There's so many reasons for that.

So, these people are graduating into a market

that I do not envy them for so many reasons.

But also, even as Zoe said, the appropriate tact,

like, I'm kind of wondering if it's, like,

in this beautiful world of changing technologies,

you can go out and create changing technologies.

Right. The world is your oyster.

You're telling me a billionaire wasn't self-aware

about the people? Kill me.