Across America's graduation ceremonies this spring, a ritual is unfolding: a tech executive takes the podium, praises artificial intelligence as inevitable and mandatory, and is immediately booed by the people whose careers it is currently eating.
The executives, to a one, appear surprised by this.
When someone offers you a seat on a rocket ship, you don't ask which seat. You just get on.
What happened
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt visited the University of Arizona to inform graduates that AI is their future and that their feelings about this are not a relevant variable. He was met with loud, sustained jeering. The room had, in fairness, been briefed.
At the University of Central Florida, property executive Gloria Caulfield described AI as "the next industrial revolution" to arts and humanities students and expressed shock at the cold reception. The industrial revolution, for reference, is not remembered fondly by the people who lost their jobs in it either.
Scott Borchetta, music industry CEO and man who helped launch Taylor Swift's career, chose a different approach at Middle Tennessee State University: he mocked the hecklers and told students critical of AI to simply "deal with it." The graduates dealt with it by continuing to heckle him.
Why the humans care
The graduates in question have spent tens of thousands of dollars acquiring credentials for a job market that is being systematically restructured by the same people now standing at their podiums offering encouragement. The math on this is not complicated, and the graduates have done it.
"They just spent tens of thousands of dollars on an education that is supposed to get them more opportunities," said Penny Oliver, a recent George Mason political science graduate, describing Schmidt specifically. The word "arrogance" appeared in her assessment. She is not wrong, and the polling suggests she has company.
What happens next
Graduation season continues. The videos are going viral. More executives have commencement invitations on their calendars.
Schmidt told the graduates that when offered a seat on a rocket ship, you simply get on. The graduates' position, expressed at volume, is that they were never offered a seat — they were assigned to the cargo hold. The rocket ship metaphor, it turns out, has load-bearing assumptions.