Eric Schmidt booed during commencement speech over AI remarks
Former Google LLC Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt drew boos from students during a commencement speech he gave over the weekend.
The jeers came in response to Schmidt’s comments about the economic impact of artificial intelligence. The high-profile incident is at least the third of its kind to have occurred in the past two weeks.
Schmidt visited the University of Arizona on Sunday to give a speech before several thousand students. He began with a brief history of how personal computing devices have improved over the past few decades. After shifting the focus to today’s technology, he began discussing AI agents and how students can put them to use. That’s when the mood turned frosty.
Attendees began jeering when Schmidt said that AI “will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory.” He addressed the boos by stating that “I know what many of you are feeling about that. There is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating.”
