The Graduates Striking Back Against the Artificial Intelligence Revolution

Published: 26 May 2026. The English Chronicle Desk. The English Chronicle Online.

When Jacob Pagel graduated from Middle Tennessee State University this spring, predictions about artificial intelligence already had him questioning the value of his degree. Then a music executive started preaching about AI’s transformative power during a commencement speech. This industry will change on you in a heartbeat, it has already changed more in the last decade than in the fifty years prior, said Scott Borchetta, chief executive of the record label Big Machine. He noted that artificial intelligence is actively rewriting production as we sit here. After a few stray boos from graduates, he doubled down and told them to deal with it. The students’ jeering grew louder, but Borchetta barreled through his prepared remarks. You can hear me now or you can pay me later, then do something about it, he told the crowd. He called it a tool and told them to make it work for them. He then continued by telling them that the things they learned in their first year may already be obsolete.

Borchetta’s remarks were like a knife to the chest, says Pagel, who studied political science and human development family sciences. He felt the boos reflected how annoyed students were about what they saw as out-of-touch executives downplaying their anxieties about automation. A 2025 Harvard poll of young people in the United States found that a majority see artificial intelligence as a threat to their career prospects. Pagel and his peers are entering a job market where efficiency is already being used to justify mass layoffs. While it is unclear which jobs may be entirely replaced, and whether technology could eventually create more career pathways than it destroys, recent graduates are feeling deeply betrayed. We have been pushed our entire lives to get our diplomas, Pagel says. Then you pulled the rug out from underneath us, he adds. He notes that students spent four years learning specific things that executives now claim are no longer needed. We can get a computer to do it for two-thirds of the price, he laments.

Borchetta’s speech is one of several at commencement ceremonies this spring that have revealed a disconnect between the executives championing automation and students. This has elicited derision in real time even for Google’s former chief executive officer. Recent graduates at the University of Central Florida and the University of Arizona booed speakers who compared the advent of artificial intelligence to historical events. They compared it to the Industrial Revolution and the development of the laptop and smartphone. Sarah Kreps, a Cornell University professor who has studied societies’ reactions to new technology, offered her perspective on the current cultural climate. These tech executives are not reading the room, she says. These kids have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a degree that they do not know will serve them well, she notes. The students at these ceremonies are a mouthpiece for the population at large, Kreps adds.

While they may feel these disruptive effects acutely as entry-level job seekers, artificial intelligence has proved unpopular among the general public. A national survey conducted for NBC News earlier this year polled one thousand registered voters regarding their perspectives. It found only twenty-six percent view artificial intelligence positively and forty-six percent view it negatively. The technology scored worse than United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Donald Trump, and Kamala Harris on the same poll. However, it did score better than the Democratic party and the nation of Iran. Anger against automation is palpable across the country. This ranges from communities protesting against datacenters powering the tech boom, to workers disputing claims that computers can effectively replace them. Pagel is considering a career in helping children undergoing medical treatment, or entering politics. He might run for office, or work as a liaison for federal agencies. That sphere depends on human face-to-face interaction, he says. No computer can take that, he adds, calling AI-generated campaign ads the cheap route. Pagel is not an absolutist though. He does use Grammarly, he says, because he cannot spell. Dyslexia for the win, he adds.

Borchetta did not respond to a request for comment. But the university said in a statement that it understands and remains compassionate about students’ concerns and questions about technology affecting their careers. Chief executives’ graduation speeches about automation have become a preventable public relations disaster, according to Parry Headrick. Headrick is the founder of Crackle PR, a technology public relations agency that has worked with many startups. Executives should have acknowledged and reassured students’ anxieties, while also advising them to adapt. That is the nature of the speech, versus telling the kids to buckle up, he says. What in the heck is anybody who is young and in school supposed to do, Headrick asks. He wonders how they can listen to executives beating their chests about the next Industrial Revolution when they cannot afford groceries or rent. Nearly half of college students said their financial stress made it hard to concentrate on their coursework, according to a recent report from Trellis Strategies.

At the University of Arizona, twenty-year-old Arian Chavez was angry about his school’s decision to let former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt speak. Chavez, a junior studying chemical engineering, is part of a campus group called Students for Socialism. He helped them organize an online petition to remove Schmidt as a commencement speaker. Activists mainly took issue with sexual assault allegations against Schmidt from a former business partner. Schmidt has vehemently denied those allegations. Patricia Glaser, an attorney representing Schmidt, said in a statement that the claims are a desperate and destructive effort to publish false statements. She noted it was an attempt to escape accountability from an existing arbitration over a business dispute. In Schmidt’s graduation speech last week, he compared the rise of automation to the invention of the computer. There were already some boos as he began speaking, with a few students giving a thumbs down as the camera panned onto them.

Chavez, who was booing from the start, said some graduating students had their backs turned on Schmidt during the ceremony. He noted that others were confused by the initial jeers before Schmidt began talking about automation. But as his speech progressed, many more students joined the booing. I know what many of you are feeling about that, I can hear you, Schmidt said amid a chorus of boos. There is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, he acknowledged. He noted their fears that machines are coming, jobs are evaporating, the climate is breaking, and politics is fractured. You are inheriting a mess that you did not create, and I understand that fear, he told the crowd. Schmidt’s reassurances did not win Chavez over. They are putting the wants and needs of billionaires over us, he says. He wished companies would use technology to make workers’ lives easier, instead of using it to extract more profit or replace them. It is up to us as engineering students to use our knowledge for the service of the planet, he says. Chavez wants to work in the environmental regulation of chemical plants. A representative for Schmidt said the former Google chief executive has tremendous respect for differences of opinion but believes the best way to address these challenges is to talk about them.

At Glendale Community College in Arizona, it was not a graduation speaker that drew students’ ire. Instead, it was the automated machine reading out their names. Turns out, it missed some. College president Tiffany Hernandez apologized and told graduates towards the end of the ceremony about the situation. Here is what is happening, we are using a new automated system as our reader, she said as boos roared through the arena. Hernandez paused for a few seconds and let out a few nervous laughs. That is a lesson learned from us, she admitted to the audience. Aidan Benjamin, who is graduating from Glendale Community College this summer with an associate’s degree in accounting, was at the ceremony to support his cousin. He thought she would be walking the stage. She never did, because the automated announcement system never called her name. I was booing because I was like, this sucks, Benjamin said. This is such a big moment for students, he noted. Benjamin said they both laughed about the malfunction afterwards. But it just did not feel good at the end of the day, he says. It should not have happened that way, he concludes.

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