Vice President JD Vance seemed unusually concerned about how his audience might react when he addressed graduating cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy, opening his remarks with a plea that they not boo him before he even got into the substance of his speech.
Moments later, Vance warned against a future in which artificial intelligence makes life-and-death decisions on the battlefield. Critics accused him of preaching restraint while backing an administration whose actions have helped fuel a conflict that has already claimed thousands of lives across the Middle East.
It also resurfaced questions about Vance’s evolution on foreign policy.
Although he initially signaled discomfort after President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a surprise military strike on Tehran on Feb. 28, he quickly abandoned those concerns and rallied behind the administration’s approach.
Vance’s commencement address on Thursday, May 28, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, comes as Trump’s war heads into a fourth month with no end in sight and the vital shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz remain closed, choking off 30 percent of the global energy supply that once flowed through the Strait every day and sending energy prices skyrocketing.
What set the internet off though was Vance’s warning to his young audience.
“This is the only commencement speech 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 told the crowd before adding, “Now, you can’t boo me because I’m the vice president of the United States.”
Vance, whose biggest political benefactor, Palantir founder Peter Thiel, sells AI warfare systems to the United States and Israel, went on to say Americans are “understandably” concerned about the impact of AI on society.
“But the thing I worry about most with AI is how it will change warfare,” Vance, a Marine veteran, explained to the crowd of graduating cadets who he said will be confronted with this reality almost immediately.
“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,” he continued, seemingly unconcerned with the thousands who have already died in his and Trump’s war on Iran, including more than 150 children in girls school the U.S. double-tap bombed on the first day of the war.
Well, Vance’s remarks went over like a ton of bricks as the internet punched back.
“No the f*** he didn’t and if he did its for a PR stunt. Hypocritical f***,” an X user fumed.
Another declared, “Manchild. God the entitlement, you can FEEL the founding fathers want to crawl out of their graves and strangle him.”
This X user showed little sympathy, “lol. too little, too late.” Another added, “Tell that to trump and pete they love Ai and will do it”
Vance joked about not booing him after new grads have booed speakers at commencements across the country when they’ve talked about the benefits of AI even as the technology swallows up entry level jobs and the labor market is already seeing a tightening it hasn’t experienced in years.
His comments also come amid a growing resistance to Trump’s refusal to implement any AI regulations on the federal level, his anger over attempts by states to regulate the exploding technology, concerns over massive job losses, and AI data centers that consume huge quantities of energy and water secretly popping up in communities across the U.S.