The Booing Will Continue Until Commencement Speeches Improve
The Booing Will Continue Until Commencement Speeches Improve
https://gizmodo.com/the-booing-will-continue-until-commencement-speeches-improve-2000762929
Publish Date: 2026-05-23 19:16:00
Source Domain: gizmodo.com
As someone who built a large fortune over the last few decades, I couldn’t help but notice artificial intelligence is something young people now perceive as a source of adversity. Well, roomful of 22-year-olds, let me tell you something about adversity: I myself faced a great deal of adversity back when I was building my large fortune, and when I encountered adversity, I simply turned that adversity into opportunity, which I believe to be your duty vis-a-vis artificial intelligence, which by the way is something you are powerless to halt in any way, and which I, what with my large fortune, feel excited about. Good luck to you, class of 2026!
I hope that encapsulates everything 2026 commencement speakers are tempted to say about AI. If you’ve been honored with the opportunity to address a graduating class on their big day, you’re welcome to just link them to that block of text I wrote instead of actually saying it, because the thing is, if you say it, you’re gonna get booed.
It happened to real estate executive Gloria Caulfield when she spoke to the graduates of University of Central Florida, and then it happened to ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt when he spoke to the graduates of University of Arizona.
But like contact tracers working backwards to find the source of a contagion, the internet just surfaced an early example of the AI-booing phenomenon, which was given the day after Caulfield’s speech, before it went viral.
The speech was by guy with a $450 million net worth Scott Borchetta, a record executive who founded the Big Machine Label Group, and was one of Taylor Swift’s adversaries in the dispute over her masters a few years ago. Middle Tennessee State University just named its media college after Borchetta after he donated $15 million. He also gave this year’s commencement address:
It’s impossible to hate the whole speech. Borchetta says now is “arguably the most exciting and challenging time ever” for the media,…
