The president of Glendale Community College was pelted with a chorus of furious boos after an AI tool tasked with reading graduating students’ names completely and totally flunked the assignment.
As local outlet AZFamily reported, students and families at the Phoenix-area school were left disoriented when the names being read over the ceremony’s loudspeakers failed to match those of the students actually walking across the stage. The names displayed on the ceremony’s jumbotron were also mismatched.
“I also didn’t hear a lot of cheering, and I know my family is a pretty loud family,” graduating student Grace Reimer told AZFamily, explaining that she didn’t quite realize what went wrong until she heard her own name announced as she watched another student walked to receive their diploma.
“Yeah. That’s not right,” she told the outlet. “It definitely made me feel uneasy.”
After some starts and stops, college president Tiffany Hernandez took to the podium to reveal that the error was made by a “new AI system” the school was using, prompting a wave of boos and jeers.
“That is a lesson learned for us,” Hernandez continued. She then noted, optimistically, that the students whose names were bungled “were able to walk the stage and get a picture, which is what I would hope is the most meaningful.”
“I am so sorry,” said Hernandez. “There’s plenty of opportunities, I hope, to take some really good pictures and to celebrate you with your loved ones as well.” She later offered that students could re-walk with their names re-read, should they choose to.
Is the picture the most “meaningful” part of walking the stage at graduation, though? The whole point of a graduation ceremony is for each student to be recognized, collectively and individually, for the work that it took to earn a college degree. A photo is a way to commemorate the moment; it’s not the moment itself. The moment itself is about having your achievement recognized, which — yes — involves hearing your name read out to a crowd as you receive your diploma, while people you love cheer for you from the stands.
Now, for these students, that picture will recall the time they graduated from college, and the AI that was for some reason used to read their name spectacularly missed the mark — the perfect celebration, perhaps, as they emerge into a job market that AI has made a nightmare for them.
More on AI and graduation: Graduation Speaker Shocked When She’s Loudly Booed by Students for Saying AI Is the Future
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