Why are Gen Z students at university giving artificial intelligence the cold shoulder?
On American campuses, Silicon Valley executives are met with protests from students. This is not neo-Luddism, but the very real fear of a generation that sees AI wiping out the entry-level jobs in the labour market. And they are now demanding answers about their future.
Luddism in the age of AI doesn’t sound like hammers smashing industrial machinery, but rather the more spectacular sound of boos in university lecture theatres. What happened in American universities this spring resembles a scene that Silicon Valley hadn’t anticipated. For years, the script was simple. Managers, entrepreneurs and innovators take to the stage. They talk about the future. The students applaud. End of story. Not this year. When the speakers uttered two letters — AI — the boos began. Some have called it the first form of emotional strike against artificial intelligence.
The videos that have gone viral in recent weeks all tell the same story.
At the University of Central Florida, Gloria Caulfield describes AI as “the next industrial revolution”. Boos. When she tries to recover by explaining that “AI’s capabilities are right in the palm of our hands”, the students respond with shouts and protests.
At the University of Arizona, it was the turn of Eric Schmidt, Google’s former CEO. He, too, arrived with the classic Silicon Valley message of optimism. He, too, was met with a hostile audience. So much so that he had to deviate from his script and publicly acknowledge an uncomfortable truth: the fear that jobs are disappearing.
At Middle Tennessee State University, music producer Scott Borchetta takes a hard line: the world is changing, so adapt. “Deal with it”. The result? An even louder outcry.
