Here is a sentence I never thought I would write: I am kind of looking forward to this year’s graduation ceremonies. As parents of 10 children, my husband and I have attended a lot of these events, and they are almost uniformly tedious, clichéd and very close to pointless.
But this year, a theme is emerging: Commencement speakers are talking about artificial intelligence changing the world—and the graduates are booing them. I guess it is perverse, but part of me hopes we catch some of the action. Those boos give me hope for the future.
In one clip, the vice president of a tech company is thoroughly taken aback to discover that young adults graduating from the University of Central Florida are not super excited to welcome the approaching tsunami of A.I. “The rise of artificial intelligence is the next Industrial Revolution,” she says, and the graduates respond with an unmistakably hostile roar. “Oh! What happened? I struck a chord! May I finish?,” she responds, giggling nervously. They do not let her finish; they interrupt her repeatedly as she gets more and more flustered but sticks to her script.
At another ceremony, Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive officer of Google, seems more prepared for the boos that greet his praise of A.I., but he ascribes the crowd’s hostility entirely to fear. He offers his often-repeated advice: “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.” When the graduates don’t seem to like that, he appears irritated, even contemptuous.
