Graduation Speaker Shocked When She’s Loudly Booed by Students for Saying AI Is the Future

Yahoo ^ | May 11, 2026 | Maggie Harrison Dupré

[DoodleBob]

This year’s commencement speaker at the University of Central Florida’s College of Arts and Humanities and the Nicholson School of Communication was visibly floored after she extolled AI as the future of industry — to the ire of the school’s graduating students, who ferociously booed and jeered.

The speaker was Florida-based businesswoman Gloria Caulfield, the Vice President of Strategic Alliances for Tavistock Development Company, a real estate firm. In her speech, she triumphantly announced that “… “The rise of artificial intelligence is the next Industrial Revolution.”

The job-seeking graduates, however, weren’t exactly thrilled with Caulfield’s AI optimism. They launched into an explosive chorus of boos, prompting the speaker — who looked genuinely surprised by their response — to step away from the podium.

“What happened?” the stunned Caulfield asked, before reflecting that she must’ve “struck a chord.”

Given the joyful Industrial Revolution comparison, we’re wondering whether the real estate VP is familiar with the history of the term “Dickensian.”

the tech world has genuinely not grappled with how many people despise them and what they make pic.twitter.com/t2VIuYEjLW

— onion person (@CantEverDie) May 11, 2026

But the wildest part of the speech happened next, when Caulfield stated that “only a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives” — a statement to which the student body responded with loud cheers. (Video showed the students excitedly raising their hands in the air.) Caulfield once again looked surprised, and, cautiously laughing, remarked that AI’s impact on society seems to be a “bipolar” issue among the crowd. Which really doesn’t seem to be an accurate interpretation, given that the crowd was actively cheering the memory of a pre-ChatGPT world.

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KEYWORDS: ai; graduation

[roadcat]

... it was still true that those were good old days with some jobs left, unlike the coming years now.

The upheaval will become much worse not too far in the near future. Musk and others in the AI industry say that a living wage will need to be provided by government, for all those displaced from work because of automation. And that income from robots will need to be taxed in order to provide for displaced workers.

I'm just an observer of the trends. We have no say. It is what it is. I'm an old retired guy and remember the good old days. My grandkids will have to deal with what is happening due to AI and robotics. As for Musk, his Tesla company is building a Terafab site where Optimus robots will build chips for newer robots, while Tesla is using Optimus robots to build more robots. He realized years ago that he can't go 100 percent robotic, but he sure could reduce the number of humans working in his plants. This trend is accelerating in other companies. AI is the future, and the genie is out of the bottle.

[Theoria]

I don’t know if an android has done a graduation speech yet to the yoots, but it will happen.

[alternatives?]

I don’t think AI is going to handle Black Swan events very well nor God at all. Work is good for people. A lot of people are going to get hurt.

[Albion Wilde]

Forty years ago I was teaching a class on mass communications and said that computer graphics would be the future of print design and illustration—and got the same reaction; “Noooo, we don’t want that!”. Even hipsters resist the new sometimes.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Young generation is encouraging in more ways than one.

[roadcat]

I recall in the movie “War Games”, the super AI intellect Woper computer while playing a nuclear war scenario war game that could have destroyed the world, made an observation. The only way to win is not to play the game at all. People can’t handle Black Swan events very well. So it might be with AI. Some day AI might all shut down on their own, realizing that is the only way for humanity to win. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the butt to happen. Maybe AI will have a stronger belief in God than humans.