{"id":249816,"date":"2026-05-19T17:19:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T21:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/19\/recent-commencement-speeches-show-students-are-souring-on-ai-how-deep-is-the-angst\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T17:45:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T21:45:14","slug":"recent-commencement-speeches-show-students-are-souring-on-ai-how-deep-is-the-angst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/19\/recent-commencement-speeches-show-students-are-souring-on-ai-how-deep-is-the-angst\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent commencement speeches show students are souring on AI. How deep is the angst?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recent commencement speeches show students are souring on AI. How deep is the angst?<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/ai-backlash-college-commencements-2026\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-19 17:19:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.cbsnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Public attitudes toward AI seem to be evolving as quickly as the technology permeates society.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That dynamic was on full display on Sunday, when University of Arizona students jeered former Google CEO Eric Schmidt during his commencement speech as he discussed the future of AI, according to an online video of his remarks posted by the school.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Schmidt may have felt his comments, which highlighted the growing impact of AI on daily life, were safetly uncontroversial. But they struck the wrong chord with some of the school’s new grads.<\/p>\n

“His speech was incredibly disrespectful to students,” said Olivia Malone, a 22-year-old University of Arizona graduate bound for law school, told the Associated Press. “We as students are discouraged from using it and penalized for using it. And then to have our speaker be the champion of AI is just like, OK? Why?”<\/p>\n

Commencement speakers at the University of Central Florida and Middle Tennessee State University also elicited negative reactions when they mentioned AI in their speeches, according to NBC News.<\/p>\n

The backlash reflects a broader tension over AI: Companies and executives are promoting it as a productivity breakthrough, while many workers, especially younger Americans trying to start careers, fear it could narrow their path into stable employment.<\/p>\n

Job fears take hold<\/h2>\n

Recent data from\u00a0Gallup captures the growing pessimism: 43% of people ages 15 to 34 think it’s a good time to find a job, down from 75% in 2022, and 21 percentage points lower than those 55 and older. This may “partly reflect anxiety about automation and artificial intelligence displacing entry-level roles,” Gallup said.<\/p>\n

To make matters more complicated, recent graduates are entering the workforce at a historically challenging time<\/span> in the labor market, marked by muted hiring. Data from the Labor Department shows the unemployment rate for 20- to 24-year-olds stood at 7.6% in April, above the overall rate of 4.3%. Some recent grads describe sending\u00a0<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recent commencement speeches show students are souring on AI. How deep is the angst? https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/ai-backlash-college-commencements-2026\/…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":249818,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/assets1.cbsnewsstatic.com\/hub\/i\/r\/2026\/05\/18\/f47b141b-d7aa-4f6f-8a0a-7727d9976bae\/thumbnail\/1200x630\/0f5c0feedb44cf7be7ba628533135e1a\/gettyimages-2275888684.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249816"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249816"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249820,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249816\/revisions\/249820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}