At universities across the country, a time for celebration recently became overshadowed by a sentiment far more solemn. Graduation speakers, from the former CEO of Google to the head of a record label, took to their podiums to herald the potential of artificial intelligence and to contend that graduates must utilize this momentous tool. Yet, this pronouncement that a new digital age had dawned did not elicit excitement from the youth who would experience this world the most — rather, it provoked a chorus of boos towards the speakers involved.
This visceral dissatisfaction is not necessarily a surprise. Indeed, it may not even be without cause, given the profound and disruptive changes that AI will bring to job markets and work environments. However, there is another kind of danger also implied in this graduate reaction — a kind of cultural shift that suggests that our newest workers would prefer to act with acrimony towards a tool that might propel them forward, rather than view its arrival as a historic opportunity to apply AI to their work. In this way, the reactions of the Classes of 2026 reveal the need for all future graduates to replace their apprehension with application, to learn how to surf rather than trying to stop the waves of AI.
To be sure, it is understandable to feel concern about the effects of a device that has already begun to reshape the world. Certain jobs will be made redundant, and certain degrees will remain only present in the history books. Faced with this Promethean shift, consternation is unsurprising, perhaps inevitable, as we grapple with an invention that replicates our strengths and reduces much of our previous effort and knowledge to mere seconds of processing. It is natural to react with antipathy when a business executive heralds the very tool they are using to replace employees, whilst speaking to a group of new workforce members — a kind of tone-deaf decision akin to telling starving peasants to eat cake whilst hoarding baking supplies.
Yet, there is something markedly malignant in this reaction of booing speakers, as if those with a lifetime of opportunity to shape this new world should act with aversion rather than anticipation. This graduate reaction runs counter to the spirit of our nation, one of entrepreneurialism, curiosity and exploration, that sense embodied by Americans from the Gold Rush forty-niners to the late Ted Turner, people with prophecies of what could be attained in this country who sought to grab it. Booing feels more like an admonition of weakness than a continuation of our historic culture of using innovations to further our interests — should we prefer to let this moment pass us by, too aggrieved by the unfairness of it all to harness the moment?
Rather than act with a sophomoric bitterness, students and young adults in general must adopt an antifragile attitude, seeking to implement the tool of AI into their workstreams and mindframes so that we build on its potential rather than be replaced by it. There are myriad ways to utilize this antifragile attitude. 43 percent of Generation Z are currently considering starting a business, greater than any other generation, and 71 percent of our generation’s founders used AI to start their business. AI also offers ways to apply creative foci — it allows for architects to form site plans and designs far more efficiently, and those interested in writing can use AI to help brainstorm and edit, as well as to organize a personal website to publish from. It can help to find new cures for doctors to apply, prototype a cornucopia of visual effects for film producers to incorporate and simplify cross-cultural research for sociologists to analyze. These use cases barely scratch the surface — indeed, no matter the pursuit, there is or will be a way to advance one’s goals through implementing AI, though admittedly it is important to be careful in ensuring implementation is not done haphazardly. Instead of this eliciting the jeers of a jaundiced crowd, the progress in AI should encourage everyone to look at how they curiously and carefully explore what opportunities abound.
This summer provides the perfect opportunity to begin, or to continue, one’s exploration of AI. While efforts by the University to expand its curricular offerings are laudable and should be used by students going forward, the rapidly progressing and continuously changing nature of AI means that students cannot wait for a fixed course to provide them with the requisite application skills. These educational opportunities might be helpful in further framing and instructing around AI, but they are not sufficient — instead, students should use this summer to experiment with AI, determining which model works best for their tasks and what use cases they can apply it to for that task. Indeed, given the profound power and inevitable adoption of AI, it is almost a pragmatic necessity that students broaden their knowledge of and capabilities surrounding the tool.
To be clear, utilization must not be conflated with blind faith, as the rather different graduation experience of AI omitting and mispronouncing certain names from the ceremony epitomized. No system is infallible, and AI hallucinations remain a present problem — thus, using AI also requires being cautious in checking the work it produces.
Many have called the advent of AI the next Industrial Revolution, and in doing so provoke memories of the reactions during that historic epoch. There were those industrialists who saw the rise of machinery as an opportunity to disrupt the status quo, explore new opportunities and advance the progress of mankind. But there were also the Luddites, who destroyed society’s new mechanical implements in protest of the professional change that industrialism would cause. Only one of these two groups is responsible for much of the progress to where mankind has carried itself today — it is the group that was antifragile, which explored, found innovations and allowed these transformations to further their pursuits. Students must take on a similar mandate as we seek to stabilize our place in this shifting environment, rather than hiding behind a chorus of boos. In other words, as our former University president prompted us in his speech during our University’s graduation, perhaps with another intention, students approaching AI must remember to “be curious, not judgemental.”
The Cavalier Daily Editorial Board is composed of the Executive Editor, the Editor-in-Chief, the two Opinion Editors, the two Senior Associates and an Opinion Columnist. The board can be reached at eb@cavalierdaily.com.
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