BUZZ
AI name reader skips dozens of graduates
An Arizona college’s new artificial intelligence system malfunctioned at a commencement ceremony Friday, skipping dozens of names as it announced the graduates.
“The names being read during GCC’s commencement didn’t appear to match who was walking across the stage. Then the names at the bottom of the screen stopped changing,” AZ Family reported.
Glendale Community College President Tiffany Hernandez interrupted the ceremony to address the issue. She told the audience it was caused by the new technology and called it “a lesson learned.” The audience booed in response, Newsweek reported.
“What we were able to do, though, is that each of you were able to walk the stage and get a picture, which is what I would hope would be the most meaningful,” Hernandez said.
Although officials initially said the affected students would not be allowed to walk again, they reversed course following complaints. Graduates whose names were missed during the procession were eventually called back to the stage, where a human announcer read their names.
Students expressed frustration following the incident.
“It didn’t feel sincere and it kinda felt like they didn’t care,” graduate Grace Reimer told AZ Family.
She added that she “would have liked a little more thought to have gone into it rather than pushing something as simple as reading some names off to an AI device.”
GCC spokesperson Lindsey Wilson told The Phoenix New Times that the school has “communicated directly with graduates to apologize for the experience.”
“We are incredibly proud of all our graduates and are taking steps to ensure an issue like this does not occur again,” Wilson said.
She added that the college is “actively reviewing the specifics of what occurred” and reviewing “future commencement processes and will take steps to ensure an issue like this does not happen again.”
This isn’t the only commencement ceremony met with disappointment from the audience this year.
At the University of Arizona, the crowd booed former Google CEO Eric Schmidt as he spoke about AI in the workforce, according to Business Insider.
“The question is not whether AI will shape the world. It will,” Schmidt said. “The question is whether you will have shaped artificial intelligence.”
Graduates at the University of Central Florida also loudly booed guest speaker Gloria Caulfield, a real estate development executive, after she praised AI as “the next Industrial Revolution,” The Guardian reported.
“Woop, what happened?” Caulfield said in response to the boos. “OK, I struck a chord. May I finish?”
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