Desperate graduates find hope roasting tech CEOs

Angry graduates are turning commencement ceremonies into protest stages, booing and jeering tech executives who champion artificial intelligence from the podium. And the only people caught off guard by this backlash appear to be the executives themselves.

A series of viral videos from spring 2026 shows speakers like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt being drowned out by sustained student heckling after praising AI as both unavoidable and essential. The footage has resonated deeply with young people entering a grim job market in an increasingly unstable world.

“They deserve everything they’re getting,” said Penny Oliver, a recent George Mason University graduate with a degree in political science, speaking to The Verge. “Some would argue they’re getting off kind of lightly. I’m not saying they deserve to get hurt, but it just shows a level of arrogance and a disconnect when you see that.”

Schmidt faced a chorus of disapproval at the University of Arizona last week while telling graduates to embrace the technology. “When someone offers you a seat on a rocket ship, you don’t ask which seat. You just get on,” he told the restless crowd. The reason for the anger should have been obvious. As journalist Marisa Kabas put it, “these young people have already been forced onto the ship and there aren’t enough seats.”

The week prior, Gloria Caulfield, an executive at a property development firm, expressed bewilderment after receiving a similarly chilly reception from arts and humanities students at the University of Central Florida, where she called AI “the next industrial revolution.” At Middle Tennessee State University, music industry CEO Scott Borchetta , known for helping launch Taylor Swift’s career , delivered a patronizing speech mocking AI critics and telling students to simply “deal with it.” With graduation season still underway and the viral clips fueling anti-AI sentiment, these incidents are unlikely to be the last.

“Of course people are going to be mad and of course they’re going to boo. Why shouldn’t they?” Oliver said. “They just spent tens of thousands of dollars on an education that is supposed to get them more opportunities, and here comes this guy [Schmidt] who could never work another day in his life and still be very comfortable and well-off saying ‘Hey, you should really get on the bandwagon of this technology that’s going to replace you.’”

For many graduates, the surprised and defensive reactions from speakers reveal a massive disconnect. Tech evangelists aggressively push AI while young people are left to cope with its well-documented consequences, which threaten everything from the environment to critical thinking. What graduates seem to despise most is the underlying attitude: Not only must you accept this technology that fuels your existential dread and shrinking job prospects, but you are expected to like it.

“It demonstrates a complete lack of being in touch with real people, and also it does not surprise me,” said Austin Burkett, a game designer who recently earned an MFA from the NYU Game Center.

Burkett counts himself among the lucky. Before graduation, he landed a job working on Pocket Bard, a mobile app for tabletop roleplaying gamers who are largely anti-AI. But he noted that some former classmates have been forced into fleeting gig work training the very AI models that are replacing them. He believes graduates are right to be furious at corporate executives with a smirking “adopt-or-die” attitude.

“These are not the people who have to worry about rent, and they’re not the people who have to worry about their job being replaced,” Burkett added. “The people who are saying ‘it’s just a tool’ are the ones who can afford to say that. It puts the blame on the individual, and puts forth this myth that these institutions and systems and companies have no ulterior motive and no reasons to make a profit.”

To be fair, student reactions to AI-praising speakers often vary by major. The strongest responses seen in viral videos come mainly from liberal arts and humanities students.

Many of those graduates are aiming for creative careers now facing existential threats from generative AI. At CalArts, President Ravi Rajan was booed off stage by graduates of the legendary California art school, a well-known incubator for animation talent. Rajan has faced heavy criticism for eliminating creative programs and pushing AI adoption through corporate partnerships with tech companies.

The anger is reaching a boiling point as young people across most fields face intense pressure from the tech and business world to adopt generative AI tools , even as employers use those same tools to justify hiring freezes and mass layoffs. Polling shows that while students and Gen Z are among the most frequent users of AI tools, they are also deeply skeptical of Silicon Valley and have become some of the technology’s biggest critics.

That skepticism is hardly surprising given the technology’s repeated failures to deliver on basic promises. At a Glendale Community College commencement in Arizona, the room erupted in boos after the college president revealed that the school’s new AI system had failed to read out more than half the students’ names as they walked across the stage. And earlier this week, The New York Times reported that a major nonfiction book by author Steven Rosenbaum about truth in the age of AI contained numerous fake or misattributed quotes hallucinated by AI tools.

“Society is in the process of restructuring itself around a tool that simply doesn’t work,” writer Margaret Killjoy wrote this week in response to the incidents. “If you needed to build a bridge, you wouldn’t hire a structural engineer who gets it right about 70% of the time. You wouldn’t read a history book that is 30% fiction but doesn’t tell you what 30%.”

It would be a mistake to ignore that much of the anger young people express against AI flows through tech platforms that reward engagement metrics and short-lived cycles of paralyzing rage. Viral videos may offer catharsis and unite large groups, but graduates like Oliver recognize that doesn’t lead to material change unless people step up and take action.

“I definitely think there’s a catharsis in it, especially at a time where it feels like there are never any consequences for rich people, ever,” Oliver said about the viral clips. “I think it’s possible to take this outrage and channel it toward something impactful, but it doesn’t just spring up. People have to get together and say ‘let’s do something.’”

“I think despite the urge to feel nihilistic about it, I do have a decent glimmer of hope, inspired by people my age and younger,” said Burkett, mentioning a theater production written by high school students motivated by AI’s environmental problems. “It’s inspiring to see that it’s not just people who have had this privilege to go through an undergraduate or graduate degree, but the youth who are coming up and feel very strongly about this.”

(Source: The Verge)