Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was booed multiple times Sunday while discussing artificial intelligence during a commencement speech at the University of Arizona.
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Schmidt, who led Google for a decade, opened his remarks by reflecting on his own student years and the rise of the computer, — a device named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” in 1982. He traced its evolution into the laptop and smartphone and its proliferation through the internet and social media.
While the computer connected people, “democratized knowledge” and lifted many out of poverty, it also carried a darker side, Schmidt said.
“The same platforms that gave everyone a voice, like you’re using now, also degraded the public square,” he said. “They rewarded outrage. They amplified our worst instincts. They coarsen the way we speak to each other, and that way, and in the way that we treat each other, is in the essence of a society.”
Schmidt then drew a parallel between artificial intelligence and the transformative impact of the computer — and was immediately met with boos.
“I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you,” Schmidt said, addressing the crowd as many continued to boo him. “There is a fear … 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 is fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create, and I understand that fear.”
He went on to argue that the future remains unwritten and that the graduating class of 2026 has real power to shape how AI develops — a claim that drew further disapproval from parts of the audience.
Schmidt urged graduates to embrace freedom, open debate, equality and the willingness to engage with those they disagree with.
“If you’d let me make this point, please —” Schmidt said amid boos. “The point I’d like to make is choose a diversity of perspectives, including the perspective of the immigrant who has so often been the person who came to this country and made it better. America is at its best when we are the country that ambitious people want to come to. Let us not lose that.”
He closed by congratulating the class and offering them closing words. “The future is not yet finished. It is now your turn to shape it.”
The University of Arizona did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
Schmidt’s reception was not an isolated incident. Earlier this month, real estate executive Gloria Caulfield was similarly booed at a commencement speech at the University of Central Florida after mentioning the controversial technology. “The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution,” she said as the crowd erupted in boos.
