Op-Ed: Grads Can Do More Than Boo at AI's Advance

Graduation season has a new soundtrack—a chorus of boos. In a New York Times opinion piece, Molly Jong-Fast dissects why students are jeering commencement speakers who won't stop hyping artificial intelligence to a crowd staring down debt, a shaky job market, and shrinking entry-level opportunities.

• "Think of this from the graduates' perspective: Wealthy old people telling you your future is being pulped by acres and acres of electricity-sucking, water-guzzling data centers feels dystopian because it is. Companies are trying to automate your future away. No wonder you're furious."

Jong-Fast says the issue isn't that graduates are "woke" or fragile; it's that the traditional promise of college-to-middle-class security is breaking down. They are right to see their futures as threatened—and to be angry, "but none of this is as inevitable as it seems." She urges young people to push for tech regulation, vote for lawmakers who'll do it, and fight data centers in their communities. "Don't just boo—do something," she writes. Read the full essay.