Vice President JD Vance got a laugh from graduates at the U.S. Air Force Academy after joking that they were not allowed to boo him during his commencement address.
Speaking to more than 900 graduating cadets and their families at the academy’s football stadium near Colorado Springs on May 28, Vance referenced a growing trend of graduation speakers facing hostile reactions when discussing artificial intelligence.
The vice president acknowledged he had watched clips from other commencement ceremonies where mentions of AI drew negative responses from audiences. But before sharing his own thoughts on the rapidly developing technology, he made it clear that the same reception would not be welcome during his speech.
Vance gets laughs with AI joke
“You know, this is the only commencement speech that I’m giving this year and so I’ve watched a few highlights of graduation speeches where this or that corporate leader will discuss artificial intelligence, AI, and be met with literal boos,” Vance said as he wrapped up his remarks.
“Now, you can’t boo me. I’m the vice president of the United States,” he added, drawing laughs from the crowd.
His comments come after several commencement speakers recently faced backlash while discussing AI. Among them were real estate executive Gloria Caulfield at the University of Central Florida, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the University of Arizona, and music executive Scott Borchetta at Middle Tennessee State University, where audience members booed during remarks about AI’s growing role in the industry.
Vice President JD Vance. Credit: Jamie McCarthy / Getty
Why Vance says AI concerns him
While Vance joked about the subject, he was less enthusiastic about AI than some other graduation speakers.
Addressing the graduating cadets, the Marine veteran said many Americans are “understandably” concerned about the technology’s impact on jobs, its use of water and energy resources, and the broader ways it could reshape society.
“But the thing I worry about most with AI is how it will change warfare,” Vance told the future Air Force and Space Force officers.
The vice president also referenced a recent proclamation by Pope Leo XIV, known as an encyclical, and voiced support for its message that humans should “not outsource the most important moral decisions to digital technology,” in Vance’s phrasing.
A warning about the human side of war
Vance urged the graduating cadets to remember the importance of human judgment in military decision-making.
“I want to endorse that sentiment and make it more specific to each and every one of you,” Vance said. “One of the things that makes Americans unique, that makes you as war fighters unique, is that we wage war justly.”
He continued: “You are the ones who ensure that our lethality in war, which is amazing and necessary, it also coexists with our heart and with our conscience.”
The remarks came as the conflict involving Iran continues to draw scrutiny. The war, which began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Feb. 28, has killed thousands of Iranians and thousands more people across the region. In the early days of the conflict, U.S.-made missiles struck a school in the city of Minab, killing more than 150 people, most of them schoolchildren.
President Donald Trump and the Pentagon have said the strike remains under investigation. Admiral Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, told Congress last week that the investigation was nearing completion nearly three months after the incident.
