Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was repeatedly booed during a University of Arizona commencement address when his speech turned to artificial intelligence, The Verge reported on May 17. Schmidt acknowledged graduate anxiety about machines, jobs, climate, politics, and a damaged inheritance, then asked the crowd to let him make his point. He later told students that when someone offers a seat on the rocketship, they should get on. The line came from a familiar Silicon Valley script, but the room did not receive it as inspiration.

The setting made the reaction sharper. A commencement speaker is expected to offer graduates a usable picture of the future, and Schmidt offered the language of acceleration to students entering a labor market already shaped by automation, layoffs, and corporate promises about productivity. The boos answered the mismatch between the stage and the pitch. The same industry asking young workers to accept disruption also asks them to treat that disruption as opportunity. In that room, the rocketship line sounded like a demand to applaud a future designed elsewhere.