For the second time in a week, a newly graduating class of US university students has gone viral for publicly taking a firm stance against artificial intelligence and top tech executives arguing in favour of AI takeover despite mass layoffs consuming the job market on multiple levels.

On Friday (US time), loud boos filled the air at the University of Arizona’s graduation ceremony as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt waded into the world of entry-level jobs, a touchy topic that has already been severely hit by the AI boom. The tech billionaire’s commencement address earned a distasteful reception merely days after Gloria Caulfield, a real estate development executive, struck a nerve by likening the rise of artificial intelligence to the “next Industrial Revolution” at the University of Central Florida’s 2026 graduation.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s AI speech at Arizona University

Attempting to advise those ready to enter the workforce, the American billionaire highlighted the impact of modern technology. “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,” he said at the University of Arizona, as quoted by Business Insider.

“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.”

Recounting the old days, he continued, “In the years after I graduated, no one sat down and resolved to build technology that would polarize democracies and unsettle a generation of young people. That was not the plan, but it happened.”

The boos grew to a clamour as soon as Eric Schmidt brought up AI while speaking to the students. “I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you. There is a fear,” he told them.

Each time he mentioned artificial intelligence, the graduating class booed even louder, expressing their dissatisfaction over a technological advancement that has largely occupied negative headlines for stealing human jobs.

Calling those fears “rational,” Schmidt went on, “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.”

What he said next possibly earned the most backlash during his speech. “The question is not whether AI will shape the world. It will,” Schmidt said. “The question is whether you will have shaped artificial intelligence.”

US university responds to Eric Schmidt’s speech being booed

Reacting to the now-viral development, a spokesperson for the University of Arizona said that the billionaire Google executive was invited to deliver a speech at the school owing to his contributions to the tech world.

“He helped lead Google’s rise into one of the world’s most influential technology companies and continues to advance research and discovery through major philanthropic and scientific initiatives, including partnerships that support important work at the University of Arizona,” the spokesperson said, as quoted by Business Insider.

AI’s impact on human workforce

According to a UBS Global Research report issued on May 13, 42% of corporate respondents expect artificial intelligence to lead them to somewhat or significantly bring down their overall hiring pipelines. Moreover, a new Job Cuts Report published by Challenger, Gray & Christmas indicated that 26% of announced corporate layoffs in the most recent month were blatantly blamed on artificial intelligence initiatives.

On top of that, a recent Pew Research Centre Study showed that about half of Americans felt that the surge in AI prevalence in their daily lives made them feel “more concerned than excited.”

Elsewhere, a Harvard Business Review study found that despite promises otherwise, employees’ work had not been reduced but intensified amid the increasing heavy reliance on AI at the workplace. An eight-month study of how generative AI changed work habits at a US-based tech company with about 200 employees revealed that “employees worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks, and extended work into more hours of the day, often without being asked to do so.”

The Harvard Business Review study noted further, “Once the excitement of experimenting fades, workers can find that their workload has quietly grown and feel stretched from juggling everything that’s suddenly on their plate. That workload creep can, in turn, lead to cognitive fatigue, burnout, and weakened decision-making. The productivity surge enjoyed at the beginning can give way to lower quality work, turnover, and other problems.”

Some of the biggest tech companies to lay off employees so far this year include Cisco, Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, Cloudflare, Coinbase, Meta, Amazon and PayPal. According to layoff tracker data by TrueUp, 137,687 tech workers have lost jobs across 323 layoffs in 2026 as of May 17 (1,005 people per day), as companies increase their investments in an AI turnaround strategy.

Other recent AI speeches at US universities

Chants like “AI sucks” rang out during a speech by Gloria Caulfield, Vice President of Strategic Alliances for Tavistock Development Company, at the University of Central Florida earlier this month, when she said “the rise of artificial intelligence is the next Industrial Revolution,” adding that we’re “living in a time of profound change.”

Caulfield was so taken aback by the response that she had to take a moment to grasp what was happening. “Woop, what happened?” she asked nervously. “OK, I struck a chord. May I finish?” Although the group of students calmed down, seconds later, uproar broke out again, as she said, “Only a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives.” However, this time, the reaction was more cheerful, as the crowd erupted into a raucous applause.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, however, got a different reaction when he gave a graduation speech last week at Carnegie Mellon. Contrary to Eric Schmidt’s and Gloria Caulfield’s addresses, which spurred fears along the lines of “get along with AI or get left behind,” Huang reassured the newly graduated class of students that AI was likely to create more opportunities for the youth.

Treading lightly and sensitively around the subject, he said, “AI is not likely to replace you. But someone using AI better than you might.”