Imagine working for years to graduate from college, only for your name to never be said. No cheers after your smiling face is plastered across the big screen as you walk across the stage. No walking across the stage at all. 

That was the reality for dozens of students at Arizona’s Glendale Community College this May after a faulty AI system skipped over their names. Tiffany Hernandez, the college’s president, informed the crowd that the college was testing out a new AI system to read out graduates’ names and was met with loud boos and jeers. Hernandez said that they were not able to redo the procession walk, but that those whose names weren’t called could come on stage for a photo.

The use of AI in reading out names during graduations is not revolutionary. In 2026, AI seems to be around every corner, whether people like it or not. Even in higher education, AI has become a new normal, with AI study tools, AI graders and even AI that will do students’ assignments for them. For many students, this has resulted in AI fatigue. 

In a commencement speech at the University of Arizona, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke to graduates about the future, like most commencement speakers do. But, instead of providing graduates with a hopeful message and thoughtful advice about entering the workforce, Schmidt honed in on the topic everyone is tired of hearing about: AI. Schmidt encouraged the recent graduates to embrace AI and recognize that it is the future.

“The question is not whether AI will shape the world. It will,” Schmidt said in his speech. “The question is whether you will have shaped artificial intelligence.”

The speech was, unsurprisingly, met with astounding boos. Although some may be surprised that many young people are so unabashedly opposed to a seemingly progressive technology, the reality is that AI sets graduates back more than it advances them. Speakers ignoring the hardships that new graduates are enduring is tone deaf and feels like a slap in the face.

Many members of Gen Z have become increasingly averse to AI after more and more jobs have begun to be replaced by it. Unemployment rates among recent graduates have surpassed the previously equal rates of experienced workers in recent years as AI has become more prevalent in the workforce. These changes leave a wake of educated workers with no income and mountains of student debt in a country already fraught with inflation and decreasing social services.

At the moment they are celebrating the culmination of hard work and sacrifice, students do not want to hear about how AI is the future. They want to hear about how they are the future. They want to hear that they are not replaceable, and that all of the hard work that they put into their education has fruitful results that can’t be overtaken by a computer at the drop of a hat. People have passion and they have creativity, something that AI could never replicate.

Students don’t want to adapt to AI because we shouldn’t have to. We shouldn’t have to pick and choose our careers based on what AI can or cannot achieve. We shouldn’t have to train AI to do our jobs. Why aren’t humans the ones being prioritized? Why are we giving AI jobs when unemployment, especially amongst new graduates, is on the rise? While using AI may be cheaper than hiring humans, it is more important than ever to support and uplift the work of humans

This year’s commencement speaker at the Kansas City Art Institute, fashion designer Jeremy Scott understood what graduates want to hear at a time when nearly every aspect of the world feels uncertain. Scott opened his speech with a generic message about perseverance and students’ futures before revealing that it was written by AI. After symbolically ripping his paper up, he turned to the recent graduates and provided them with a message of hope rather than one of dread, telling the artists that their work is more important than ever in an age of impersonal, corporate messaging.

“Because you know what AI can’t do? It can’t do what you do. It can’t have an original idea,” Scott said. “It can’t even differentiate the difference between a good idea, a unique idea and one that’s mediocre.”

I can only hope that Seattle University’s commencement speakers this year try to see things from the graduate’s point of view. I hope they understand that students want to hear messages of hope as they enter a workforce that is already so bleak and broken. Graduates don’t want to hear that they chose the “wrong” degree or that they are going to be replaced with AI. They want to hear that the work they are doing is important, and that they will be valuable assets not just to the workforce, but to the world.