Former Google CEO and Democrat mega-donor Eric Schmidt encountered widespread booing from graduates during his commencement address at the University of Arizona on Saturday as he spoke about young people’s “fear” of AI. His speech was already controversial based on rape allegations made by his former girlfriend.
The New York Post reports that the 71-year-old tech billionaire was met with jeers from students as he delivered remarks about AI and automation at the university’s graduation ceremony. The hostile reception came after significant backlash over his selection as the commencement speaker in light of sexual harassment and rape allegations filed in a lawsuit by his former girlfriend, Michelle Ritter.
Schmidt had anticipated a negative response from the audience regardless of his speech content, following the allegations made by the 31-year-old tech entrepreneur who was both his romantic partner and business associate. Multiple left-wing and feminist student organizations distributed flyers at Friday evening’s commencement ceremony detailing the accusations against Schmidt.
The booing intensified when Schmidt appeared to acknowledge mistakes made during his tenure at Google, which ended in 2011. “We thought that we were adding stones to a cathedral of knowledge that humanity had been constructing for centuries, but the world we built turned out to be more complicated than we anticipated,” Schmidt said during his address.
He continued by reflecting on unintended consequences of technological development, stating, “The same tools that connect us also isolate us. The same platforms that gave everyone a voice — like you’re using now — degraded the public square.”
The crowd’s disapproval grew particularly loud as Schmidt’s speech turned to AI, a topic that has raised concerns among critics about potential massive job displacement for new graduates entering the workforce. “I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you. There is a fear,” Schmidt said, briefly struggling to be heard over the sustained booing.
Schmidt acknowledged the anxieties facing the graduating class, describing their concerns as understandable. “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 are fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create,” he stated, calling these fears “rational” before urging young people to adapt to changing circumstances.
Despite the disruptions, Schmidt concluded his remarks by emphasizing the inevitability of AI’s impact on society. “The question is not whether AI will shape the world. It will. The question is whether you will have shaped artificial intelligence,” he said.
Breitbart News previously reported that graduates at the University of Central Florida booed a commencement speaker who praised AI.
As booing graduates across the country demonstrate, AI is an increasingly divisive topic, especially for America’s youth. Breitbart News social media director Wynton Hall has written his instant bestseller Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI to serve as the definitive guide on how the MAGA movement can create positions on AI that benefit humanity without handing control of our nation to the leftists of Silicon Valley or allowing the Chinese to take over the world.
Read more at the New York Post here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of AI, free speech, and online censorship.