‘It’s a Modern-Day Draft’: Why Stanford Students Walked Out on Sundar Pichai’s Commencement Speech
Are the kids all right? The answer to that question probably depends on your criteria. At the very least, I can tell you that some
Are the kids all right? The answer to that question probably depends on your criteria. At the very least, I can tell you that some of them are most definitely very mad. The anger percolating among America’s youth was on display this graduation season, as college students across the country booed and jeered several high-profile commencement speakers who dared discuss—let alone extol the benefits of—artificial intelligence. While AI use among college kids is widespread, so too is the fear and mistrust about what the technology might mean for the future. A recent Gallup poll found that Gen Z sentiment toward AI has significantly declined, with only 22 percent of respondents expressing excitement about the tech—and anxiety around AI affecting 42 percent of them. Among the commencement speech chaos, though, one school stood out to me: Stanford University. The California-based institution, long a key hub for Silicon Valley recruiting and a pipeline into elite tech gigs, this year saw more than a hundred students walk out of Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s remarks to graduates.
Ironically, Pichai didn’t explicitly mention AI in his address at all. But for the organizers of the Stanford walkout, AI is only a tangential concern: More than any specific technology, their demonstration was designed to raise awareness of Google’s contracts with the US and Israeli governments, as well as ICE. The walkout organizers may not have convinced Google to change its ways, but they did manage to create an international news event. Media outlets including CNN and the BBC ran with the story, and videos of the walkout have amassed millions of views online. I wanted to know more about how the coordinated effort came to be, what student organizers hoped to accomplish, and how it feels to be newly graduating—from a school as Silicon Valley–aligned as Stanford, no less—into a world that’s now arguably run by Big Tech. Two of the Stanford walkout organizers, Eva Jones and Amanda Campos, traveled to New York and sat down with me in person earlier this month.
Our conversation is below. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. KATIE DRUMMOND: Eva Jones and Amanda Campos—welcome, both of you. AMANDA CAMPOS: Thank you so much, Katie. Thank you for having us. I'm delighted that you're here. Thank you for making the trip. First of all, congratulations on graduating. What did you study in school? Why did you choose Stanford four years ago when you were thinking about where to go to undergrad? Campos: I studied environmental policy at Stanford, and I am currently working in the environmental justice activism and advocacy space in California. I quite literally came to Stanford because I knew I wanted to take action, to solve the environmental crisis. I grew up in Brazil, and since I was little it was the huge issue I saw as being able to take action towards. But arriving at Stanford, I quickly realized [the school] just had so much fossil fuel money and bias, and I quickly became an organizer as a result.
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