Maybe the kids are all right after all.
The Associated Press reports that at a sampling of colleges around the country this spring, graduating seniors displayed healthy skepticism about the purported wonders of artificial intelligence technology, jeering commencement speakers touting its transformative qualities.
At the University of Arizona, for example, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt evoked a chorus of boos when he told the 10,000 graduates that AI “will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every person and every relationship you have.”
While that may be Google’s idea of heaven, to many in what has been called the Anxious Generation, it’s a pretty accurate description of hell. AI is being developed and deployed at dizzying speed to god knows what ends. Newly minted graduates are being launched into the grimmest job market in years, seeking careers in fields that may be effectively extinguished by AI before they land that first job. The unemployment rate for college graduates ages 22 to 27 is at its highest level in 12 years. No wonder that a poll conducted by Harvard’s Institute of Politics last year found that 70% of college students viewed AI as a threat to their future employment.
Schmidt and other commencement speakers tried to assure the graduates that AI is merely a tool and that they have the power to shape its future uses. This argument is specious; the tech industry pretty much goes about its business without answering to anybody. Many young people instinctively recognize this, having been previously sold a bill of no-goods about how social media would enhance their lives.
Real estate executive Gloria Caulfield was taken aback as boos erupted during her speech at the University of Central Florida when she said, “The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution,” a comparison widely and fondly invoked by AI apologists. It has apparently escaped their historical attention that the industrial revolution that began in the 18th century created a hellscape for many thousands of displaced workers while generating millions of dollars in profit for the few who exploited them.
That point is not lost on Pope Leo XIV, who last week issued a 42,300-word papal encyclical warning about the threat posed to human dignity and autonomy by technology that would replace them in the workplace and in social roles. “The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs,” he wrote; work is not only the means of earning income, the pope declared, but also “a requirement of the human condition, a normal path toward maturity, development and personal fulfillment.”
The encyclical was timed to coincide with the 135th anniversary of an earlier one issued by his namesake, Leo XIII, amid the disruption wrought by the Industrial Revolution. It sought to protect the rights and dignity of the working class, and “became one of the foundational texts of modern Catholic social teaching,” according to The New York Times.
Among other measures, the current pope called for government regulation of companies developing AI; protection and retraining for workers whose jobs are threatened; and guardrails to ensure that humans, not AI, make decisions about the use of weapons.
Government regulation of AI in the United States is a long-shot at the moment. Investment in the technology is driving — some might say propping up — the American economy and the titans of tech wield enormous political clout. Just last week, they persuaded President Trump at the last minute not to sign an executive order that would have created a voluntary system of government review of new leading-edge AI systems up to 90 days before they were released publicly to test for unforeseen dangers and vulnerabilities.
This is a long way from the kind of government regulation advocated by Leo, and it didn’t make it to the finish line. But the power of moral force sometimes works in mysterious ways, and there is reason to hope that may be the case here.
Another cause of optimism is that some young people are recalibrating their outlook on the future. Several students interviewed by The Associated Press said they were pivoting from technology-oriented studies to majors and career paths that emphasized critical thinking and face-to-face human interactions — which AI cannot replicate.
A data science major at the University of Virginia said she was considering switching to studio art in the face of bleak job prospects. “I’m at a point where I’m thinking if I can’t get a job being a data scientist, I might as well pursue art,” she said. “Because if I’m going to be unemployed, I might as well do something I love.”
We can attest that you can do something you love and be employed doing it, but we doubt that AI will be much help in figuring out how.