Speaking to graduates of University of Central Florida\u2019s College of Arts and Humanities and Nicholson School of Communication and Media on May 8, commencement speaker Gloria Caulfield, vice president of strategic alliances at Tavistock Group, told graduating humanities students that AI is the \u201cnext industrial revolution,\u201d and was met with thousands of booing graduates.\u201cAnd let\u2019s face it, change can be daunting. The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution,\u201d Caulfield said. At that point, murmurs rippled through the crowd. Caulfield paused, and the crowd erupted into boos. \u201cOh, what happened?\u201d Caulfield said, turning around with her hands out. \u201cOkay, I struck a cord. May I finish?\u201d Someone in the crowd yelled, \u201cAI SUCKS!\u201dHer speech begins around the hour and 15 minute mark in the UCF livestream. According to her bio on the Tavistock Group\u2019s website, Caulfield \u201coversees the health and medical partnerships as well as business development for Tavistock\u2019s visionary Lake Nona community.\u201d Lake Nona is a planned community in Florida. Caulfield is \u201cinstrumental in managing corporate partnerships and identifying strategic intersections with stakeholders in the Lake Nona community,\u201d her bio says.Before the industrial revolution comment, Caulfield praised Jeff Bezos for his passion and use of Amazon as a \u201cstepping stone\u201d to his real dream: spaceflight. Rattled after the crowd\u2019s reaction, she continued her speech: \u201cOnly a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives.\u201d The crowd cheered. \u201cOkay. We’ve got a bipolar topic here I see,\u201d Caulfield said. \u201cAnd now AI capabilities are in the palm of our hands.\u201d The crowd booed again. \u201cI love it, passion, let’s go,\u201d she said.\u201cAI is beginning to challenge all major sectors to find their highest and best use,\u201d she continued. \u201cOkay, I don’t want any giggles when I say this. We have been through this before, these industrial revolutions. In my graduation era, we were faced with the launch of the internet.\u201d\u00a0She goes on to talk about how cellphones used to be the size of briefcases. \u201cAt that time we had no idea how any of these technologies would impact the world and our lives. […] These were some of the same trepidations and concerns we are now facing. But ultimately it was a game changer for global economic development and the proliferation of new businesses that never existed like Apple and Google and Meta and so many others, and not to mention countless job opportunities. So being an optimist here, AI alongside human intelligence has the potential to help us solve some of humanity’s greatest problems. Many of you in this graduating class will play a role in making this happen.\u201d\u00a0Caulfield is saying this to humanities and communications graduates, who are entering a workforce that AI has been gutting with increasing intensity for years. Not even the people and companies she valorizes in her speech believe that these graduates are headed for an easy time in the workforce: In April, Palantir CEO Alex Karp said AI will \u201cdestroy\u201d humanities jobs, and last week, a report found that AI is blamed for one in four lost jobs, amounting to 21,490 AI-related cuts last month, or 26 percent of the 88,387 total, \u201cmarking the second straight month the technology has been the top driver of layoffs,\u201d CBS reported.\u00a0At the companies Caulfield referenced as existing because of advances in technology, CEOs blame AI for massive job cuts; Meta announced last month that it would cut 10 percent of its workforce later this month due to focusing more on AI, with more cuts to come. People who keep their jobs at these companies are often made miserable by the ways they\u2019re forced to do AI busywork.Within the humanities, the field these graduates have spent the last several years of their lives studying for careers in, AI is adding stress and dysfunction to library work and academia. A recent study by Microsoft ranked historians and interpreters and translators as the most likely professionals to have AI disrupt their work. Last year, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said he believed AI could wipe out half of all white collar entry-level jobs. This is not the crowd to tell they should embrace the \u201cchange\u201d that AI brings.UCF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"