{"id":489980,"date":"2026-05-18T02:33:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T02:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/489980\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T02:33:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T02:33:19","slug":"ex-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-fails-to-read-room-on-ai-gets-booed-into-oblivion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/489980\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt Fails to Read Room on AI, Gets Booed into Oblivion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a rare news event that hasn\u2019t occurred in, gosh, a week<\/a>: a university commencement speech was greeted with hostility because the speaker praised AI.<\/p>\n

404 Media got the footage<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fairness, the speaker, ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt was at least trying to thread the needle, vaguely empathizing with students. \u201cThere is a fear 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 are fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create,\u201d he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But, as in the case of real estate executive Gloria Caulfield, whose pro-AI speech one week ago triggered an almost identical reaction<\/a>, it\u2019s easy to see how Schmidt\u2019s words could be perceived as arrogant to a crowd that had heard the AI-inevitability message before a million times. He can be heard telling the crowd of young people they will \u201chelp shape artificial intelligence\u201d and that, \u201cIf you don\u2019t care about science, that\u2019s okay, because AI is gonna touch everything else as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

In perhaps his most ill-advised moment in the 404 Media footage, Schmidt says:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cYou can now assemble a team of AI agents to help you with the parts that you could never accomplish on your own. When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I suspect the crowd was probably already picturing itself relegated to steerage<\/a> on the great \u201crocket ship\u201d of AI, but Schmidt spelled it out anyway.<\/p>\n

Premeditated booing of controversial speakers is common, and tends not to be all that newsworthy. In fact, that also happened last week<\/a> to noted anti-cancel-culture guy Jonathan Haidt when he spoke at NYU. Judging from the theme of his speech\u2014basically, young people aren\u2019t fragile snowflakes\u2014a low-energy hum of disapproval seems to have been baked into his plan.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s worth paying attention when a speaker\u2019s words\u2014let alone two speakers\u2019 similar words\u2014ignite an unplanned outcry. In fact, I would argue that you can use the spontaneous booing and heckling of commencement speakers in response to their speeches as a sort of crude barometer for picking up populist trends that will, right or wrong, define the next decade or so in politics.<\/p>\n

For instance, in 2001, at a December commencement<\/a> just two months after the September 11 attacks, newspaper publisher Janis Besler Heaphy spoke to the graduates of Cal State Sacramento, and urged vigilance with regards to privacy and liberty during a jingoistic moment in history. Asking \u201cto what degree are we willing to compromise our civil liberties in the name of security?\u201d and saying \u201cthe Constitution makes it our right to challenge government policies,\u201d didn\u2019t resonate at the time\u2014and indeed for years afterward\u2014and got Heaphy booed completely off the stage.<\/p>\n

In May of 2016, a Cal State Fullerton commencement speech from Univision anchor Maria Elena Salinas got a hostile reaction from what was apparently a more MAGA audience than expected in the heart of California\u2019s Republican-friendly Orange County. In footage<\/a> you can see her invoke the name of then presidential candidate Donald Trump while defending the news media against a rising tide of disapproval. \u201cNow they\u2019re even blaming us, the media, for creating Donald Trump. Imagine that. Isn\u2019t that terrible?\u201d An ominous rumble starts, and then Salinas switches to speaking Spanish very briefly. The rumble becomes unmistakable jeering. According to one news account, someone even shouted \u201cSpeak English.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

A decade later, well, here we are. A telling poll from March<\/a> found that Trump\u2019s immigration policies have a net approval rating of -19, but the intensity of disapproval for the concept of AI appeared worse in that same poll (even if the finding is statistically identical) at -20 net approval.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So if we use commencement speech reactions as our tea leaves, the next decade might just see a prolonged negative reaction to AI. Meeting such a moment might call for, perhaps, in the words of Blood in the Machine\u2019s Brian Merchant<\/a>, \u201ca program of rejecting generative AI in extractive and exploitative circumstances, of protecting labor from deskilling, wage degradation, and surveillance, and refusing AI\u2019s intrusion into spheres of public life Silicon Valley [seeks] to colonize and profit from.\u201d I mean just vibes-wise.<\/p>\n

At any rate, if you\u2019re a business tycoon planning to address a crowd of college graduates in the next few weeks, try to remember who you\u2019re talking to. These people have just spent four years reading more books than you probably have in the last 20 years. They are already well informed on AI, thank you, and they are on the verge of trudging into the cruel new employment hellscape you had a hand in creating to compete against millions of spambots and OpenClaw agents for scarce seating on your AI rocket ship that feels like it\u2019s headed directly for the sun.<\/p>\n