By AJ Dellinger
Publication Date: 2026-06-10 20:05:00
Over the last few weeks, graduating students across the country have met any reference to artificial intelligence with hearty, sustained boos. That included booing commencement speakers for talking glowingly about an AI-filled future, booing a college president after the AI system used to read names skipped students, and—according to an account provided by Microsoft President Brad Smith—it included students at Princeton rejecting jacket designs they believed were created with AI tools.
Smith heard the boos, ruminated on what the kids were telling him and others about how they feel about AI, and came to a conclusion: The kids are wrong. In response to what he called a “powerful wake-up call for the tech sector” from the generation entering the workforce, he penned a 3,000-word essay that those kids are definitely going to read over their summer break in order to get his milquetoast message of embracing change.
To start his essay, Smith offers the kind of…
