Graduation speeches are supposed to inspire, but at several recent commencement ceremonies, students met speakers promoting artificial intelligence with boos instead.
The latest example came earlier this month. Big Machine Records founder and CEO Scott Borchetta appeared at a graduation event for Middle Tennessee State University's College of Media and Entertainment, per New York Magazine.
During the speech, Borchetta described AI as a "tool and that we mustn't be afraid of it." But the crowd did not respond warmly. As boos broke out, Borchetta smiled and pushed back, saying: "Deal with it. Like I said, it's a tool. Hey, you can hear me now or you can pay me later."
Borchetta added: "This industry will change on you in a heartbeat. It has already changed more in the last 10 years than in the 50 years prior. AI is rewriting production as we sit here."
He was not the only commencement speaker to face that kind of reaction. Students also booed former Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the University of Arizona after he said AI would shape every profession and classroom. Tavistock Development Company executive Gloria Caulfield drew similar backlash at the University of Central Florida after calling AI "the next Industrial Revolution."
The repeated boos suggest this is about more than a few awkward speeches. Younger people in the U.S. have a growing distrust of AI, especially as people tell them to adapt to sweeping technological change they did not ask for.
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Schmidt appeared to acknowledge those fears directly, saying graduates worry "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, and I understand that fear," per NBC News.
This frustration matters because graduates are entering a workforce that automation and broader economic disruption appear to be reshaping. When executives present AI as unavoidable, students often react with anger. Many believe that this inevitability claim means people in power will place the burdens associated with the technology on everyday people.
A newly released New York Times/Siena College poll underscores that unease. Overall, 35% of American voters said AI is "mostly bad." Among people ages 18 to 29, that figure was even higher.
These students' skepticism is not the same as them resisting progress. Asking who benefits from AI, who bears the risks, and how jobs and public life could change is a reasonable response, especially when leaders frame adoption as inevitable.
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