In recent months, the public’s backlash to the artificial intelligence boom has spilled over to a surprising place: college commencement stages. From Florida to California, students have booed speakers who praised AI or highlighted its growing role in today’s society.
A cohort that historically has supported and quickly adopted cutting-edge technologies is now growing more skeptical.
The backlash is hardly surprising since AI threatens to wipe out the kind of entry-level jobs that new college graduates depend on. But beneath that immediate threat lies another, less obvious one: the AI boom’s impact on climate change — an issue that young people have grown up worrying about and that has shaped how they view their future.
In Pennsylvania alone, there are more than 130 AI infrastructure projects either under construction or in the approval pipeline. As demands for AI have increased, utilities and developers are racing to secure enough power to support them. Clean energy projects are already playing an important role in the AI infrastructure build-out.
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