Students Boo Commencement Speaker After She Calls AI the ‘Next Industrial Revolution’ - 404 Media

There's nothing quite like a commencement speech to remind graduates that their degree is about to become as useful as a chocolate teapot. At the University of Central Florida, a speaker foolishly described AI as the 'next industrial revolution' and was promptly rewarded with a chorus of 'AI SUCKS!' from the humanities graduates. One can almost hear the startup CEOs in the audience muttering 'get used to it, kids.'

The speaker, presumably someone who has never met a humanities graduate, was probably expecting a standing ovation for predicting that their chosen careers are about to be automated. Instead, they got a live demonstration of the very human emotion that AI, for all its many talents, can't simulate: the ability to spot bullshit at twenty paces. The crowd wasn't just booing the speaker; they were booing the entire premise that their education is a waste of time.

And to be fair, they have a point. While Silicon Valley spins fantasies of a post-work utopia, these students are staring at a future where their creative and critical thinking skills are devalued by millions of lines of code. The 'next industrial revolution' might finally make good on the promises of the first one: full automation, mass displacement, and a terrifyingly unequal distribution of the spoils. But at least the revolution has a nice catchphrase. 'AI SUCKS!' is more honest than any white paper OpenAI has ever published.