At the Friday evening commencement for UCF\u2019s College of Arts and Humanities and Nicholson School of Communication and Media, Gloria Caulfield<\/a>, President of the Lake Nona Institute and Vice President of Strategic Alliances at Tavistock, was one of the speakers.<\/p>\n While Caufield was discussing technological innovations, she remarked that it was \u201can understatement\u201d to say we were now \u201cliving in a time of profound change.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cChange is exciting,\u201d she continued. \u201cVery exciting. And let\u2019s face it, change can be daunting. The rise of artificial intelligence is the next Industrial Revolution \u2013\u201d<\/p>\n The graduates began booing and Caufield nervously laughed and looked momentarily confused.<\/p>\n \u201cWhew! What happened?\u201d she asked, turning behind her as the booing increased in volume and one person could be heard yelling, \u201cAI sucks!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, I struck a chord. May I finish?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUhh, only a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives,\u201d Caulfield said, this time being interrupted by loud cheers and applause from the audience.<\/p>\n UCF graduates cheering<\/p>\n Screenshot via YouTube.<\/p>\n She was once again taken aback by the reaction. \u201cOkay. All right. Okay, we \u2014 we\u2019ve got a bipolar topic here, I see. Okay. Uh, and now AI capabilities are in the palm of our hands \u2013\u201d<\/p>\n Cue more booing from the graduates.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2013 And \u2014 oh, I love it. Passion, let\u2019s go, okay \u2013\u201d she said, as she got back into her prepared remarks.<\/p>\n Caulfield perhaps could have anticipated this response, considering that the graduates she was addressing had majored in fields including journalism, communications, humanities, arts, digital media, film and television production, advertising, and public relations that are often mentioned in discussions about AI\u2019s impacts \u2014 specifically the negative ones.<\/p>\n Orlando Weekly\u2019s<\/a> Chloe Greenberg covered the graduation speech and interviewed several graduates, describing Caulfield\u2019s \u201cill-timed comment\u201d in her speech as turning the commencement into a \u201cbrief humiliation ritual.\u201d<\/p>\n Greenberg quoted Houda Eletr, a graduate of the Nicholson School of Communication and Media, who had dunked on Caulfield as a \u201ccorporate mouthpiece\u201d and joined in the booing:<\/p>\n \u201cTo stand in front of a graduating class of artists and communicators and discuss Jeff Bezos and Howard Schultz, is to spit on our efforts to flip the script. I\u2019m embarrassed to have had to endure the most embarrassing, unskippable, tone-deaf, ad-like commencement. Boo to AI and boo to your agenda,\u201d Eletr told Orlando Weekly.<\/p>\n \u201cIt will not be the rise of AI that is the next Industrial Revolution; it will be the boo-ers who refuse to take a check from the top 1% to present an empty agenda. It will be humans for humans.\u201d<\/p>\n Clips of Caulfield\u2019s speech quickly made the rounds on social media<\/a>, with multiple posts racking up millions of views. The vast majority of these posts were highly critical of Caulfield and expressed solidarity with the graduates. A sampling of posts is below.<\/p>\n Watch the video above via YouTube<\/a> (Caulfield\u2019s remarks begin around the 1:15:00 mark).<\/p>\n The post College Graduation Speaker Shocked When Students Loudly Boo Her for Saying AI Is the \u2018Next Industrial Revolution\u2019<\/a> first appeared on Mediaite<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Screenshot via YouTube. Video of a speaker at the University of Central Florida\u2019s commencement ceremony this weekend is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,275572,275570,275569,74226,275571,74,73747,9280],"class_list":["post-638208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-caulfield","tag-commencement-ceremony","tag-gloria-caulfield","tag-industrial-revolution","tag-nicholson-school-of-communication-and-media","tag-technology","tag-university-of-central-florida","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"UCF](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/f706985bf958e3b8d4e66c5def2b2b6b.jpeg\"\/)
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