College used to be different. We had computers, sure, but when it was 5 a.m. and you were staring down a 9 a.m. deadline for a 10-page paper, there was no algorithm there to save you. You got used to the taste of 5 Hour Energy, or you accepted failure. Muscles honed by long hours in AOL chatrooms helped us crank out hundreds of words in the blink of an eye. Were they coherent? Probably not. But they were at least derived from real thoughts, however bleary they may have been.
Students today exist in a world in which machine-learning tools like ChatGPT have completely upset higher education. They’re using AI to write papers that professors are using AI to grade. Robot-assisted cheating has killed Princeton University’s centuries-old honor code. Teens now entering college are already hardened by years of outsourcing their education to a machine. The media frenzy surrounding AI in higher education has largely painted the Gen Z and Gen Alpha students adapting this new world as lazy or entitled, content to skate by on artificial brainpower. That may be part of it, sure. But it also sells college students a bit short: many of them are still smart enough to realize that AI is going to hurt them more than it helps.
The people who don’t realize this, unfortunately, are university administrators planning graduation ceremonies. This graduation season, multiple universities have trotted out utterly tone-deaf big-tech boosters in order to inspire a generation of students about to enter one of the most dismal job markets in recent history. At the University of Central Florida, commencement speaker Gloria Caulfield, a VP for a “smart city” development company, was almost booed off the stage when she called AI “the next industrial revolution,” speaking glowingly about the technology to a room full of students whose lives will increasingly be defined by it.
It happened again, when former Google CEO Eric Schmidt also tried to comment on the technology’s infiltration of every aspect of public life during Arizona State University’s commencement. “You will help shape artificial intelligence,” he began, before a chorus of boos broke out. “We do not know the precise contours…” he tried to continue, before being drowned out again. This process repeated several times throughout his speech. “When someone offers you a seat on the rocketship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on,” Schmidt said. “The rocketship is here.” The assembled ASU students did not want to get on, it seemed, regardless of the seat.
“His speech was incredibly disrespectful to students,” Olivia Malone, a recent University of Arizona graduate, told the Associated Press. “We as students are discouraged from using it and penalized for using it. And then to have our speaker be the champion of AI is just like, OK? Why?”
Big Machine CEO Scott Borchetta — famous for selling Taylor Swift’s catalogue to Scooter Braun — even got caught by the AI boos during a speech at Middle Tennessee State.
“AI is rewriting production as we sit here,” Borchetta started. There were some scattered boos from the back of the room. “I know it. Deal with it,” he quipped. “Hey, then do something about it, ok?” he said as boos continued.
The most surreal example came at Glendale Community College, also in Arizona, where university administrators bizarrely left off dozens of students’ names from the rolls during graduation due to a mistake they blamed on a “new AI system.” Again, a chorus of boos.
What we’re seeing here is less an unpopular technology and more a generational divide in how people see the world. Polling on the issue, thus far, is clear: Last year, Pew Research found that while 50 percent of all Americans are concerned about the technology, young people in particular are convinced that it will make people worse at thinking creatively and forming meaningful relationships. The dangers of AI, to people raised around it, aren’t hypothetical: they’ve seen it degrade their lives already.
“Our career path is compromised by AI,” Don Strouble, a UCF grad who was at the ceremony, later told KnightNews, UCF’s student newspaper. Strouble added that he thought people like Caulfield were trying to “force a state of acceptance about something hostile to not only our livelihood but the environment and the livelihood of people living near data centers.”
For an adult on stage, AI is a glittery new technology, one that makes them excited about the future. After all, their careers are firmly entrenched. Why would Eric Schmidt care if AI tanks the job market he’s sending students out into, so long as the value of his shares in Google are going up? His peers who are actively boosting the industry are an extreme example of this. The AI industry is similar to a classic pyramid scheme, where the bottom is falling out more and more every day. Everyone, for the most part, leaves college on the bottom of the pyramid. Only now, there’s no solid ground to stand on to even start to climb up — just a bunch of binary code, zeros and ones. America’s youth are smart enough to figure out that in this future, they’re the zeroes.
Colossal scientists hold an artificial, 3D-printed egg, which was created. with a honeycomb pattern for optimal airflow.Colossal Biosciences
Entrepreneur Ben Lamm founded Colossal.Colossal Biosciences
Two of the dires wolves created by Colossal play.Colossal Biosciences
Beth Shaprio is Colossal’s chief science officer and a world expert on ancient DNA.Colossal Biosciences
Scientists work at Colossal’s 55,000-square-foot headquarters in Dallas.Colossal Biosciences
A chick embryo grows inside an artificial egg created in a lab.Colossal Biosciences
Perry (center) and Hubbard with Gabonese Ambassador Noël Nelson MessoneEthan E. Rocke/Americans for Ibogaine
The iboga plant produces bright-orange fruit, but it’s the bark that is used to make the sacrament.
A Bwiti ceremony in Gabon. Iboga is the religion’s sacrament, and a central part of its rituals.AnneClaire Stapleton/Americans for Ibogaine
Hubbard (seated left) at a Bwiti ceremony.AnneClaire Stapleton/Americans for Ibogaine
Hubbard in GabonAnneClaire Stapleton/Americans for Ibogaine
Ibogaine is prepared for use in a guided psychedelic experience at a clinic in Tijuana, Mexico, July 26, 2024.Mark Abramson/”New York Times”/REDUX
Hubbard and Perry at the Americans for Ibogaine meetingEthan E. Rocke/Americans for Ibogaine
Braden Peters, also known as Clavicular
Are Clavicular’s Followers Rethinking His Influence?
Clavicular’s rise was not just fast. It marked a shift in how a lot of young men see themselves. Over the past year, the streamer and social media personality became one of the most prominent figures in the world of “looksmaxxing,” a subculture built around the idea that every part of a man’s appearance can be improved and perfected through discipline and effort. That world had existed mostly in smaller forums and niche communities, but Clavicular brought it into the mainstream. What had once seemed extreme or obsessive now felt socially acceptable.
A major reason his content was so popular was because of how he explained his processes. Clavicular did not just show results or post before and after pictures. He broke everything down into clear steps. His videos explained routines, habits, and daily choices in a way that made self-improvement feel structured and achievable. His content — whether it was about crystal meth, peptides, anabolic steroids, or even bone smashing, which is a pseudoscience that involves hitting your face with a hammer to improve your looks — was fascinating even if it fell outside of the bounds of what’s recommended by doctors or even considered to be safe. Though some viewers may have been hate-watching, I saw many of my friends and fellow college students begin to take him seriously.
Clavicular’s content landed at a time when a lot of young men were already searching for direction. Many of my friends feel uncertain about where they stand socially, financially, and romantically. There is a constant sense of comparison online, where it feels like everyone else is ahead. In that environment, Clavicular’s message was simple and direct. If you improve yourself, especially your appearance, everything else will follow.
What stood out to me was not just how many people watched his content, but how many people I knew acted on it. My friends told me that watching him encouraged them to go to the gym more consistently. I also saw many of those same friends change their diets, their routines, and the way they talked about their bodies. In group chats, people would send his videos and debate about whether things like bone smashing, which only a few friends tried, worked. The term “looksmaxxing” was sometimes used jokingly, but in reality, they were trying to optimize their appearance in very specific and intentional ways because of what they were seeing from Clavicular.
For a while, that belief held. His rise showed how much demand there was for this kind of guidance and how quickly it could spread. But, his advice started to become too much. Three friends told me they had started to feel uncomfortable with how far Clavicular’s routines were going.
Lately, they’ve noticed Clavicular has been acting increasingly erratic. Earlier this week, Clavicular was hospitalized after a reported overdose. He was released the day after, and said he would quit substances, “hopefully forever.” But those around him remained worried — his representative, Mitchell Jackson, announced he would not work with the streamer until Clavicular agreed to get treatment.
The reactions among my friends surprised me. Many who followed his content and listened to his advice said that he needed to get his act together and were doubtful about whether they would still follow him and the more extreme looksmaxxing routines he pushes. Others still support him, but were shocked at what happened, especially because he always presented himself as someone in control. As one of my friends said, “He made it seem like if you just followed everything, your life would be perfect. But now it feels different.” They related to Clavicular in many ways and thought he was worth listening to. Now, my friends are not just questioning him as a person, but how much weight they should give to what he says.
One friend recently told me, “I still care about improving myself, but I don’t need to listen to everything he says so seriously.” My friends still want to look good, but many of them will no longer look to Clavicular or other looksmaxxers to do that. They are starting to see his advice as too radical, and believe they could get the results they want on their own.