College Students Are Starting To See the Cracks in AI and They’re Booing It Loudly

As quickly as people became enamored by AI and what it can do, the darker side and the possible environmental ramifications caused some to turn their backs on technology that involves artificial intelligence. Now, younger generations are especially wary of using AI, so much so that college graduates are booing the very idea of supporting AI.

So, why are college students booing AI? There might have been a time when students began to rely on ChatGPT and other AI assistants for help with homework or even essays. But now, it seems, sole students and graduates have shifted their views on what AI means for technology, jobs, and the general future of the world.

When a commencement speaker at the University of Central Florida's graduation ceremony called AI "the next industrial revolution," students began booing and shouting out their dislike for AI in general, according to USA Today.

Fabrizio Cariani, a professor and chair of the philosophy department at the University of Maryland, told the outlet that some students are worried about the impact of AI on their future careers, which they just spent several years studying for.

David Friedberg, one of the hosts of the All-In podcast, said on the show that there are a few reasons why college students are booing AI and why they might not trust it.

According to him, "AI creates too much power for the 1% in the short-term, and the 99% aren't seeing the long-term benefits yet."

He also said, "I think that there's an underlying view that technology creates leverage for a small group of people, which creates power imbalances, and nothing represents that more than AI, that a small number of people that control, and profit from, and benefit from AI are going to end up getting out-sized returns relative to the broader population."

It's not that AI is inherently evil and bad for the world, but the way it is used and the amount of data centers that need to be built to keep AI going is the bigger issue. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), many AI models require a substantial amount of electricity.

And, because of that, the amount of carbon dioxide emissions increases, and the electrical grid around the world has more pressure put on it.

Servers also require a lot of water for cooling.

Elsa A. Olivetti, a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the lead of the Decarbonization Mission of MIT's Climate Project explained,, per MIT, "When we think about the environmental impact of generative AI, it is not just the electricity you consume when you plug the computer in. There are much broader consequences that go out to a system level and persist based on actions that we take."

And data centers, which are causing a stir in cities across the United States, not only take up land and emit pollution, but they each contain tens of thousands of servers for AI. There are environmental demands for each one of these servers, and the more that are built, the more resources are potentially taken away from actual humans.