College grads shocked as names are read at commencement by AI: What a beautiful personal touch!

These grads got a robo-sendoff they won’t forget.Students at New York City’s Pace University were left shell-shocked — and maybe just a bit shellacked — when their recent graduation ceremony featured a synthetic surprise: Their names were read aloud not by a proud professor or a human announcer, but by a voice created by artificial intelligence.Instead of the usual pomp and circumstance, it was giving … self-checkout.A viral video posted by @therundownai on Instagram shows Pace grads queuing up to have QR codes on their phones scanned — a moment some compared to “fruit and vegetables at a supermarket checkout” — then hearing their names uttered aloud via disembodied AI over the sound system.“Because nothing says ‘we value you’ like a synthetic voice butchering your name after four years and thousands of dollars,” wrote user @thedeveloperstory on Threads, who also shared the clip.“What a beautiful personal touch!”The university did give students a heads-up, directing them to a website where they could phonetically spell their names and confirm the pronunciation.

The goal? Accuracy.The result? A debate hotter than an outdoor, summer cap-and-gown ceremony.Commenters on both Instagram and Threads were divided.

One viewer beneath the IG post deadpanned: “Imagine a school that would expel you for using AI to write a paper, but will use AI to read graduate names for them.”Another on Threads fumed, “Laziness! Are they really scanning people’s phones? What the actual F? That guy couldn’t read their names?”One user even lamented the visual awkwardness.“Yeah, that looks super cheesy, since it’s scanned right there in plain view of everyone,” they wrote.“It’s the whole idea that we know how the sausage gets made, but we don’t necessarily need to actually see the sausage getting made.”Still, others were surprisingly on board.

“Same at Northeastern University,” noted one commenter.“Students recorded their own name ...