A University of Central Florida graduation ceremony turned into a brief humiliation ritual for commencement speaker Gloria Caulfield after she called AI \u201cthe next industrial revolution.\u201d<\/p>
The somewhat ill-timed comment, made at the graduation ceremony for UCF\u2019s College of Arts and Humanities and Nicholson School of Communication and Media on May 8, was met with an eruption of booing graduates.\u00a0<\/p>
One person could be heard through the crowd grumbling, \u201cAI sucks!\u201d<\/p>
Caulfield continued, \u201cOnly a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives.\u201d The crowd cheered.<\/p>
After again mentioning AI, and more boos from the crowd, Caulfield responded, \u201cOh, I love it. Passion. Let\u2019s go.\u201d<\/p>
Caulfield is the vice president of strategic alliances for real estate firm Tavistock Development Company; the founder and executive director at Lake Nona Impact Forum; and the president of the Lake Nona Institute, according to her LinkedIn<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p> She dedicated about three minutes of her 11-minute speech to praising the future of AI.<\/p> Her speech highlighted skepticism and trepidation around technological advancements in the past, like the launch of the internet, email and modern cellphones. She said, ultimately, \u201cIt 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 of the others.\u201d<\/p> Caulfield also highlighted a varied list of \u201cleaders of significant accomplishments\u201d like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, former president Bill Clinton, pro skiier Lindsey Vonn and former NBA player Magic Johnson.<\/p> One graduate in attendance (and one of the many boo-ers), Nicholson School of Communication and Media\u2019s Houda Eletr, called the speaker a \u201ccorporate mouthpiece.\u201d<\/p>