This year’s commencement speeches in higher education have witnessed some unexpected incidents. Namely, on a few occasions, college students vocally booed speakers for their comments about AI. This might seem “unexpected” just because we’ve seen the litany of opinion pieces on how prevalent generative AI use has become among students, and to be sure, this represents a major problem, and one that isn’t going away. But these instances also make one wonder if at least a healthy portion of today’s college kids are disillusioned with AI and actually don’t want its overbearing presence in their lives. 

As you can see from this clip from NBC, students were not particularly elated when the first speaker featured, tech executive Gloria Caulfield, referred to AI as “the next industrial revolution.” 

Anthony Ha writes at TechCrunch about how these students are reflecting the widely shared worry over finding a viable job in a tough and ever-shifting economy: 

In a recent Gallup poll, only 43% of Americans aged 15 to 34 said it’s a good time to find a job locally, a steep drop from 75% in 2022. 

The emphasis on AI and the ways in which it may shape the workforce, culture, and even our relationships, is certainly merited, but I also wonder if Gen Z (currently aged 14-29 as of 2026) has been so inculcated with ever-evolving forms of digital technology that many of them are simply pining for a simpler, less anxious way of life. That’s certainly been my experience. Ever since I was exposed to the internet as a child, I’ve struggled to find balance between online and offline life and have frequently wished I never made a social media account. 

We might contrast such commencement addresses with their calls to embrace AI or be “left behind” with the much deeper and inspiring message of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who has done instrumental work in spreading awareness of social media’s deleterious impacts on mental health among young people. Haidt co-wrote a book called The Coddling of the American Mind about how college students arrive on campuses emotionally fragile, never want to be challenged to grow, and therefore enter the rest of their lives set up to fail. Haidt’s selection as a commencement speaker at New York University, where he teaches, was protested by some of the students who claimed he didn’t accurately represent their values. Nonetheless, Haidt gave the address, and his remarks, recorded in The Atlantic, are well worth reading. As the title suggests, his core advice is to “pay attention.” In a world constantly vying for attention and directing it to unworthy ends, young folks can choose to attend to what is excellent, good, true, and beautiful. They can get off the hamster wheel and live their lives with more freedom, purpose, and connection. 

A lot of commencement speakers got booed over the past couple of weeks and for several different reasons. Suffice it to say that not everyone is so pleased with where things are headed in technology and society. Many graduating students may just want a simpler life where they can work, afford to live, and enter life-giving relationships. Hopefully we can mutually build a context in which those things are achievable while figuring out how to best use these emerging technologies.