AI Wave Sweeps Job Market, Google's Former CEO Faces Boos and Protests from Young People

While tech giants spoke highly of the boundless prospects of the AI revolution on stage, the younger generation offstage expressed their anger with increasingly loud boos.

This week, Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt delivered a speech at the University of Arizona's commencement ceremony. He candidly told the graduates that the impact of AI would be "larger in scale, faster in speed, and more profound in consequences" than any technological change in human history.

"It will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every individual, and every relationship you have," said Schmidt.

However, before he could begin to soothe the anxieties of the younger generation in the audience about job loss and the unknown future, the scene was already filled with piercing boos.

A similar scene unfolded at the University of Central Florida on May 8th, where a real estate executive's AI-themed speech was met with heckling and jeers from students present.

This sentiment is not without reason; Standard Chartered Bank announced this week that it will lay off over 7000 people, explicitly stating that it will replace "low-value human capital" with AI.

On the tech giants' front, Meta plans to lay off 10% of its global workforce starting this month and has begun installing tracking software on the computers of its U.S. employees to train its AI models. Amazon has cut about 30,000 corporate positions in recent months, and financial technology company Block has reduced its workforce by nearly half in February.

A survey report released by Gallup in April shows that the anxiety and anger of Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) towards AI are continuing to heat up, with a significant drop in the proportion who are hopeful or excited about AI compared to a year ago.

Nearly half of the respondents believe that the risks of AI outweigh the benefits, with only 15% viewing it as a net positive impact.

The report's author wrote that "negative sentiments have significantly intensified in the past year," the growth in AI usage has also begun to level off, and "working young people are significantly more likely to see AI as a risk rather than an opportunity."

It is worth noting that data also shows that the more frequently people use AI, the higher the proportion who hold a positive view of it.

Schmidt acknowledged that the concerns of the younger generation are "rational," but still characterizes all of this as an inevitable trend, requiring everyone to adapt proactively. This is consistent with the rhetoric of most corporate executives today.

At the same time, the backlash from the South Korean auto workers' union, Hollywood screenwriters, and the Indian film industry indicates that this resistance has transcended the scope of a single region or industry.

For investors, the logic behind the above signals is worth paying attention to: a shift in public sentiment, especially when it is concentrated in the core workforce group for the next few decades, may gradually evolve into policy pressure, tighter regulation, and even changes in consumer behavior.

In the short term, leading tech companies continue to accelerate the implementation of AI alternatives, with cost reduction logic dominating market narratives; but as layoffs expand and social backlash intensifies, the risk premium at the regulatory and public opinion levels may gradually emerge.