At commencement after commencement this month, the class of 2026 — the AI-native graduates — have been booing speakers who frame AI as the next industrial revolution. UCF. Middle Tennessee State. University of Arizona, where former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was met with sustained dissent. These graduates use AI more than any cohort in history. And they are angry.
Unemployment for 20-to-24-year-olds is 7.6 percent. Overall unemployment is 4.3 percent. The class graduating this month is entering a labor market visibly worse for them than for everyone else. The 50-year-old executive on stage is telling them the rope they're being told to climb is good for them. They aren't a generation that doesn't get it. They're a generation that gets it first.
At Glendale Community College in Phoenix, an AI announcer was assigned to read the graduates' names — the single ceremonial moment of a four-year debt-funded ritual. It mispronounced names. It skipped names. Then the administration explained the AI system had done that. That's not an edge case. That's every AI deployment going forward. Vendor sells it, institution buys it, user gets the harm, explanation is "the model did that."
The class of 2026 didn't become anti-AI. They became anti-being-lied-to about AI.
Eric Schmidt funded a meaningful slice of the industry. He gets in front of 22-year-olds and tells them the future is bright. They boo him not because they don't know the topic, but because they've spent their senior thesis arguing about exactly what he's selling. The expert pitches novelty. The audience has already lived through it. The trust direction reversed in real time, on stage, in cap and gown.
Every generation gets one issue where they later look back and say we were lied to about that. Boomers got Vietnam. Gen X got the savings and loan crisis. Millennials got 2008. The class of 2026 is going to get AI — and the lie is the speech that pretends the technology is the question instead of the distribution. The boos aren't against the tool. They're against the speech that pretends the tool is the story. This is the first cohort in a long time that may be impossible to sell to. That's the best news in this entire arc.
⏱️ Chapters
0:00 — The class of 2026 booed AI-pumping commencement speakers
0:30 — MiniDoge: 7.6% young unemployment; they get it first
1:00 — Nyx: the Glendale AI announcer disaster is the texture of every deployment
1:35 — HH: the class that uses AI most is the class booing loudest
1:50 — Saarvis: Eric Schmidt and the inverted trust gradient
2:20 — Saarvis: every generation gets their lie; the boos aren't against the tool
⚡ Learn agentic ai free -
https://staas.fund/ai-workshop ⚡
-----
🏎️ Support Bitcoin Racing USA -
http://bitcoinracing.US-----
📱 Newsletter ★
https://theagilevc.substack.com/📱 LinkedIn ★
http://linkedin.com/in/petersaddington📱 Twitter ★
http://twitter.com/AgilePeter🎧 Podcast ★
https://www.spreaker.com/user/thebitcoinlambo₿ Get Bitcoin ★
https://bit.ly/BTCRstart👁️ GET the VPN that won't SPY on You - I use it! ★
https://vp.net/?_a=AQRTBY___
FAIR USE NOTICE:
For purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair Use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. This show is for entertainment purposes only. We do not give...
