Trying to scare college kids about AI coming for them is the worst thing commencement speakers could have done

This college commencement season — from north to south, east to west, state universities to the Ivy League, law schools to military academies — one trend stood out: speeches about AI.Some speakers praised the technology and were booed; others denigrated it and were cheered.But one thing was clear, it’s all anyone can talk about.

At least 25 graduating classes have heard some version of the spiel. Yes, talk about AI is timely, but it’s also not all that helpful.Nobody knows where the technology is headed, and students probably have a better grasp of that future than the typical graduation speaker.Meanwhile, all this talk is exacerbating Gen Z’s anxiety and clouding their end-of-college experiences with dread.The trend apparently started when real estate developer Gloria Caulfield delivered an address to graduates at the University of Central Florida, telling them that “the rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution.”She was stunned by merciless booing.The viral moment it created was a preview of what was to come, as literally dozens of speakers chose AI as this year’s topic (did they ask AI what was trending?).Those subjected include graduates at the University of Arizona, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Northeastern, Emory, Harvard, the Air Force Academy, UVA Law, the University of Florida, Loyola Marymount, Yale School of Management, Villanova and Pratt Institute.Ditto Tennessee State University, Marquette, Bard, Grand Valley State, Kansas City Art Institute, Stillman, Tuskegee, Stevens Institute of Technology, the University of Wisconsin Green Bay, St.

Bonaventure and the University Maryland Baltimore County.At Wesleyan, Sen.Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, told grads, “You definitely don’t need another speech about AI”… and then launched into a conversation about artificial intelligence and a story about Open AI CEO Sam Altman.But the feedback was pretty clear.

Gen Z wants to hear about anything but how their fu...