Eric Schmidt booed during commencement speech over AI remarks

Former Google LLC Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt drew boos from students during a commencement speech he gave over the weekend.

The jeers came in response to Schmidt’s comments about the economic impact of artificial intelligence. The high-profile incident is at least the third of its kind to have occurred in the past two weeks.

Schmidt visited the University of Arizona on Sunday to give a speech before several thousand students. He began with a brief history of how personal computing devices have improved over the past few decades. After shifting the focus to today’s technology, he began discussing AI agents and how students can put them to use. That’s when the mood turned frosty.

Attendees began jeering when Schmidt said that AI “will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory.” He addressed the boos by stating that “I know what many of you are feeling about that. There is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating.”

Schmidt joined Google shortly after its launch and served as the search giant’s CEO until 2011. He spent another 9 years as board chair before leaving in 2017. Schmidt is currently the CEO of Relativity Space Inc., a company that develops space launch vehicles.

Schmidt’s family office, Hillspire, reportedly invested in more than a dozen AI startups between 2019 and 2025. Anthropic PBC is among the fund’s portfolio companies.

Schmidt’s commencement speech is at least the third to have been met with a frosty reception this month over its focus on AI.

Last week, students at the University of Central Florida booed a real-estate executive who described AI as the “next Industrial Revolution.” A few days earlier, a commencement speaker at the Middle Tennessee State University drew a similar response after mentioning AI.

There’s mounting scrutiny around the impact of not only AI models but also the data centers that power them. Last week, officials in Hill County, Texas placed a one-year moratorium on the construction of data centers and related power infrastructure in unincorporated areas. According to Politico, eight data centers were set to be built in the county before the decision.

Key players in the AI market are taking steps to address concerns about their infrastructure investments. In January, OpenAI Group PBC launched a program called Stargate Community to ensure that its data centers don’t increase residential electricity prices. Anthropic announced a similar initiative a few weeks later.

Photo: Magnus Höij/Flickr