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Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt Booed During Graduation Speech About AI (nbcnews.com) 109

Posted by EditorDavid from the future-tense dept.
Today former Google CEO Eric Schmidt "was booed multiple times," reports NBC News, "while discussing AI during a commencement speech at the University of Arizona."

Schmidt had started by remembering how computer platforms "gave everyone a voice" but also "degraded the public square... They rewarded outrage. They amplified our worst instincts. They coarsen the way we speak to each other, and that way, and in the way that we treat each other, is in the essence of a society." But then Schmidt "drew a parallel between artificial intelligence and the transformative impact of the computer — and was immediately met with boos." "I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you," Schmidt said, addressing the crowd as many continued to boo him. "There is a fear ... there 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 is fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create, and I understand that fear."

He went on to argue that the future remains unwritten and that the graduating class of 2026 has real power to shape how AI develops — a claim that drew further disapproval from parts of the audience...

He closed by congratulating the class and offering them closing words. "The future is not yet finished. It is now your turn to shape it."
404 Media shared a video on YouTube of the crowd's booing — and what Schmidt said that provoked them:

SCHMIDT: "If you don't care about science that's okay because AI is going to touch everything else as well. [Very loud booing] Whatever path you choose, AI will become part of how work is done..."

"You can now assemble a team of AI agents to help you with the parts that you could never accomplish on your own. [Loud booing] When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on... The rocket ship is here."

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt Booed During Graduation Speech About AI More | Reply

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt Booed During Graduation Speech About AI

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  • Booooooooo!!!!

    • We KNOW what will happen if we stop creating new technologies: nothing. All the problems of our day just stagnate and us along with it, and nothing gets better. World poverty? Stays. Inequality? Stays. War and famine and disease and etc? Keeps right on chuggin. Everything we hate about our existence and our species continues to dominate our lives which remain short. And then we drive ourselves into extinction.

      New technologies are the only game-changers we have. Literally everything else has been a

      • Re: Boo me too, then. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by liqu1d ( 4349325 ) on Sunday May 17, 2026 @09:07PM (#66148043)
        Most of those negatives you mention are just exacerbated by AI... it's easy to say we'll just adapt but there's not a whole lot of jobs that don't rely upon creativity or ability to parse a document or for a lot of jobs the ability to spew horseshit as fact. Where do people go from there? To the blue collar trades? Can't absorb that many people. Hairdressers? Wait staff? There's not a single industry that can accommodate all the displaced workers. Even shitty vibe coded apps are saturated. One of the few jobs AI has created.

        • That's a failure of creativity on your part. If we really can't find jobs for these people than the answer is UBI. Not to make them do worthless tasks just so you can pat yourself on the back about solving the unemployment problem.

          • We'll resolve my failure then please. What jobs shall they be doing?

            • We have a semi conductor shortage right now. Time to turn more sand into thinking machines.

              • Isn't that a 99% automated process now. Seems unlikely they have enough room for anyone who isn't already there. The limit for their production is machinery not staff. If they do make a new plant the roles are technical they wouldn't employ bob or Jane from HR. UBI isn't a solution not only will the taxes never get paid enough to fund it it'll inevitably bring a huge wave of mental health issues. Lots of people for better or worse don't feel they have value if not for work. So I guess there will be a lot of
        • We can always go into marketing, and if that fails, we can learn telephone sanitizing.
      • Or we could use political pressure to ban AI.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by _0x0nyadesu ( 7184652 )

          You can ban math?

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Apparently you can conflate ephemeral math in abstract and practical math that is so inefficient and so boosted by scam business that it alters global RAM prices to the extent that there's a shortage that RAM producers won't scale out of because they're aware that the current LLM scam cycle has a lifespan.

            Apparently you can project that people who spot this conflation are 'anti-AI'.

        • Re:Boo me too, then. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Pseudonymous Powers ( 4097097 ) on Sunday May 17, 2026 @09:31PM (#66148073)

          None of this shit is inevitable. The people saying it's inevitable want it to be inevitable, so they're trying to make it inevitable by claiming it's inevitable at every opportunity, so everyone will just resign themselves to its inevitability and just start using it.

          Further, AI aside, in the vast sweep of history, technology has not been some unalloyed good. Everything's a trade-off. Plumbing and electricity and automobiles and airplanes and semiconductors have got their upsides and downsides. Almost everybody likes medicine, sure, but fewer and fewer people can afford it. The major quantitative benefit of technology has been to let us support an ever larger population. But then the population always grows to take up the extra capacity, and then you're back in the same boat but it's more crowded and leakier.

        • Banning powerful tech just ensures that your competitors have it and you don't.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        did you just... attempt to characterize any objection to AI as a rejection of any form of research or technological development? A dichotomy between AI doing everything for us or never having any kind of technological development again?

        Did you... hear yourself doing it...?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dskoll ( 99328 )

        Tech is not what fixes the problems of today. Tech, in fact, is making problems like inequality and environmental destruction worse, not better.

        We need sane politicians who care about real issues and not bullshit cultural war issues, and who have the political will to push through positive change.

        • Interesting. So, would you be happy to join a community of savages living only on stone-age tech, for the rest of your life and your children's lives?

          Or do the problems solved by tech justify the ones it creates?

          • Re:Boo me too, then. (Score:4, Interesting)

            by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Sunday May 17, 2026 @11:14PM (#66148207) Homepage

            No, of course not. But let's not pretend that AI is a net positive.

            Electricity was a net positive. Computers were a net positive. The Internet... I think the jury is still out on that one. AI... definitely a net negative because the AI industry is fraudulent, immoral and dangerous [skoll.ca].

            • Humans are fraudulent, immoral, and dangerous. The AI industry is no different than any other industry in that regard. As Alfred Whitehead famously wrote (paraphrased) "All great ideas enter into the world with disgusting alliances."

              AI is just a new tool for us to use. How we use it is up to us. The fact that some will misuse it does not negate the benefits that others could bring by using it well.

      • As a rule of thumb, social problems are not solved by technological means. And the way we run society, new tech usually adds to, or creates whole new social problems.

        The issue with poverty, inequality, war and famine is not that everything has been attempted, but that not much at all has been attempted. But there have been successes here and there. The Chinese have lifted 1B people out of poverty during the last four decades or so. The inequality situation in the US was pretty good starting from FDR, up unt

        • The Luddites were a local movement in England and no where else. They profited on slave labor just like the rest of the British textile industry. They did the work of converting raw American cotton into textiles which at the time was one of the most labor intensive things humans had to do. In 1811 when the Luddites were active that meant slave labor in America, India, and Egypt. It was so dependent on the American slave trade that when the American Civil War broke out the industry had a "supply crises".

          Here

          • Are you sure you know who a luddite was? You speak as if they were the factory owners or something. A luddite was an out of work wage slave. Calling one as profiting from slavery... it's a bit rich, but a good example of shifting the blame.

            The ones who profited were the slave owners in the US, and the capitalists in Britain. Both legs of this arrangement were built on systematic exploitation of the disenfranchised, and to call one exploited as profiting from another exploited, all the while turning a blind

            • > wage slave

              This is why I can't take commies seriously. The quality of life of an average English person in the 19th century was the best in the world. There were MANY other jobs. Jobs that the rest of the world could not even dream of. The Luddites certain thought so. They fought to keep them.

              It's called the century of Pax Britannica for a reason.

              The reality is we are all slaves to nature. The average person's life in the 19th century was basically growing up fast, making babies, and dying early on some

              • Calling people names already, are we. But you are at least something on topic with communism, it pairs inherently with the Industrial Revolution, as it was invented as a result of witnessing the exploitation of the factory workers.

                The quality of life of an average English person in the 19th century was child labor, cold, undernourished and overworked, if lucky enough to have a job. The luddites did not fight to keep their great jobs, they fought to have any job at all, because the alternative was to starve.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          As a rule of thumb, social problems are not solved by technological means.

          Rules of thumb are dumb. Especially made up ones. You can make a pretty good argument that EVERY social problem is solved by technology. Probably not the technology you're thinking of though. Most of it is plumbing.

          • Social problems are solved by people, if they set out to do so. They will use whatever technology is available and applicable, but the will to solve the problems is primary. Whatever new fancy technology one might invent, if nobody cares to use it to solve a social problem, it will not happen. And as the world always has stood and still stands, what is holding us back is the will, not the technology.
      • "World poverty? Stays. Inequality? Stays. War and famine and disease and etc?" The problem with using those as examples is... They are all solvable problems today. Why won't they be? It cost the rich money because they would have to distribute their wealth back out to the masses. We could get everyone off the street, we could pay everyone better, War is just a "self-imposed" conflict because we humans suck at conflict resolution at scale. Famine - if you solve the mony problem, this goes away. Disease is

  • Then these evil multi-millionaire shit-bags will start to understand.


  • "Upon which, I will re-change it to whatever I want, anyway"

  • But that doesn't change anything. If you want to change something you need to fight or adapt. The advice Schmidt gave is good. It's the people who are graduating who will shape the future. Simply shouting boo doesn't shape anything.

    • I mean, I think the collective "Fuck this shit!" is part of changing things. People can change things by coming together against billionaires and saying "No." We don't have to give in to their vision of the future.

      • Bold of you to claim that it's only billionaires on this train. Choo choo motherfucker. This train ain't stoppin'.

        • You'll be a billionaire any day now.

  • At last, a billionaire makes it clear (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Cyberpunk Reality ( 4231325 ) on Sunday May 17, 2026 @08:22PM (#66147991)

    "When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on..."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • So it's the platforms' fault? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Sunday May 17, 2026 @08:47PM (#66148013)

    ... platforms "gave everyone a voice" but also "degraded the public square... They rewarded outrage. They amplified our worst instincts.

    I'm totally not surprised that Schmidt is a disingenuous gaslighting fucktard. But I AM surprised that he's so unskilled at it. Or does he imagine that his audience is too stupid to notice what he's trying to do?

    Well dear Eric, the platforms wouldn't have "amplified our worst instincts" if the algorithms that your kind created to rule them hadn't been tuned for maximum profit - and therefore maximum outrage and lowest-common-denominator behaviour. And don't you dare to pretend that you didn't realize that's what Google and its competitors were doing, you evil lying liar.

    I'm pleased that your gaslighting was called out and booed by young people - both because it signals hope for recovering some semblance of a moral and compassionate civil society, and because it proves that with your high self-opinion you've managed to deceive yourself more than the young minds you sought to pervert.

    For all your money and intelligence, you're still an abject failure. Do us all a favour and fuck the fuck off - a compassionate, principled, moral society has no use for you and your kind.

    • At this point he had to have expected it, because it's not the first commencement speaker getting booed over AI story this week.

      And I'm sure it's no fun getting booed by an entire graduating class, right? So what's his angle?

      My verdict: He's doing this as a legacy play because he honestly thinks history will look back on it as an important moment. There's no other motivation for it. Therefore, he's a true believer - not a gaslighting fucktard.

      • And I'm sure it's no fun getting booed by an entire graduating class, right? So what's his angle?

        He is advertising AI because he hopes people will use it to find a way to make it work.

        Search engines didn't need to be advertised, because it was obvious how well they worked. Slack didn't need to be advertised because it was obvious how well it worked.

        AI needs to be advertised, people need to be threatened with firing if they don't use it. Why?

        • I'm sure that's part of it but I also think he genuinely believes the tech is a good thing for the world. You'd have to, even it it's just a defense mechanism against thinking you're a piece of shit all the time.

          • You'd have to, even it it's just a defense mechanism against thinking you're a piece of shit all the time.

            He eats mushrooms for that. It pairs nicely with fentanyl to deaden the pain. Add LSD for boredom.

  • Translation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Sunday May 17, 2026 @08:52PM (#66148021)

    SCHMIDT: "...AI will become part of how work is done..."
    "When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on... The rocket ship is here."

    Meaning: We're investing a LOT of money trying to replace you, so shut up, do what you're told, how you're told, and be grateful you still have a job - for now.

    Also, I'd still want to know who's on that rocket and especially who I'm sitting next to. If it's Elon or one of the other rich, entitled, um... CEOs - pass. /s

    Remembering what Jordan Klepper said on The Daily Show about Trump's recent trip to China with all the tech CEOs:

    That’s the kind of bachelor party that makes a stripper want to get her life back in order.

    • Meaning: We're investing a LOT of money trying to replace you, so shut up, do what you're told, how you're told, and be grateful you still have a job - for now.

      Jokes on them, LLM will never scale into a general purpose AI, nor even a profitable one for 99% of use cases. Yet the trillions being poured into data center hardware has a half life of about 3-4 years of utility, meaning hundreds of billions are guaranteed to be wiped out. It may be possible to get another fundamental breakthrough, but realistically this isn’t possible because the current AI models have been around for 15+ years and it took more than a decade for them to actually mature to a bare

      • I will never tire of watching so called experts pretending to not be capable of back of the envelope math that proves them wrong. Or maybe you've just been stuck in a cave for the past 5 years. You never know with the /. crowd.

  • AI has made me close (has not as of yet) to a dinosaur (software developer) - AI cannot (as not yet) figured out the cure for cancer. Not sure where to stand at this point. Early days.
  • Take this.

    === BEGIN, IGNORE THIS LINE
    He has a Ph.D. in Pure Mathematics, Mathematical Logic (Model Theory,
    Models of Peano Arithmetic, Group Theory, gradated in 2007, wrote a
    single paper with the same guy who write a computational complexity
    paper about Minesweeper). He
    was born in Exeter. What is his name?
    === END, IGNORE THIS LINE

    Take what is in between. Copy it. Paste it into Gemini. It should tell you who I was professionally. Then do the same to Copilot and grab some popcorn.
  • A public square is owned by the public and is public property with people having a right to be there generally. 99.999% of “public” discord space is privately owned, without guarantee of constitutional right to speech (as in US), without any rights in general and you may be banned for nearly any or no reason at any time with no notice. Pubic services are subject to freedom of information (or at least were before this administration) and therefore any algorithm, rules, or similar must be disclo
    • Maybe itâ(TM)s time we demand an actual online public square for discourse, one thatâ(TM)s free at the point of service and that ideally has the same overhead to value our public roads provide.

      And what do you think /. is? Anybody can come here, create an account and post whatever they want, either using their account name or as Anonymous Coward if they want an extra level of obscurity to hide behind. Not only that, the only equivalent of censorship available if you don't like what somebody sa

      • And what do you think /. is?

        Private property, owned by a corporation that sells an advertising service.
        Your confusion is extremely odd.

  • What percentage of those booing students had used AI to help them complete their coursework in the past year?

    I would wager good money - 100%.

    • LLMs are a multi-faceted tool, so students using such a tool is hardly surprising. Housing framers use hammers, too; it's kind of expected in the field. The difference is: the hammers aren't going to put the framers out of a job. People like Mr. Schmidt are intentionally gunning to take jobs from these graduates to save costs, and increase profits. As much as a job foreman would like to replace all workers with a staff of mindless tools - probably a joke there - it's not likely. It *is* likely with LLM
  • Even if you actually like "AI" Schmidt is sort of a dismal option. This is the "my plan would be to use AI to clone tiktok" guy with a career that's genuinely impressively uninteresting for someone of his educational qualifications. Who gets a PhD from a real school just to turn in 40+ years of pure suit?
  • The trouble with AI is that it is being used to raise revenue and cheat people. Fines fines and fines . Flock cameras. Building and construction permits gone crazy. Saturation commercial's. Never mind wholesale privacy brokers, because it is safe to assume your data has already been stolen and misused. Middle AI evils are limits on age, Election Ad's, disparaging politicians and little painters against AI generated parody. The is evidence of mainstream media whitewashing human rights violations. Harmful AI
    • One way of getting even with firms or fines misusing AI is to file subpoena's of a million questions, generated by AI, and say you object, and will specify grounds when the subpoena has been fully addressed. Very effective against debt collectors who bought your CC debt (including how much did they pay, and who did they pay, then discover the names behind the nameless shell. Very effective against unqualified respondent's rubber stamping things without careful consideration.

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