A former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, was met with students’ boos at a university commencement address in Arizona on Sunday when he raised the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) and its effects.

Schmidt – who led the tech giant for more than a decade, acquiring a multibillion-dollar fortune in the process – was speaking to as many as 10,000 graduating University of Arizona students when he addressed the impact of modern technology on society.

The topic struck a nerve of anxiety within the student body when he traced technology’s evolution, through the laptop – which he said had “democratized knowledge” and led to prosperity – to the smartphone, the internet and social media.

“We thought that we were adding stones to a cathedral of knowledge that humanity had been constructing for centuries, but the world we built turned out to be more complicated than we anticipated,” Schmidt said.

“The same tools that connect us also isolate us. The same platforms that gave everyone a voice – like you’re using now – degraded the public square,” he added, referring to the polarization within democracies.

Schmidt said that information technologies, including AI, had unsettled young people. “That was not the plan, but it happened,” he said.

Shouting and jeers against Schmidt’s talk started when he acknowledged fears that AI threatened to deprive people now entering the workforce of a future.

“I know what many of you are feeling about that,” Schmidt said. “I can hear you. There is a fear.

“There is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating, that the climate is breaking, that politics are fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create.”

He acknowledged that their fears were “rational” and encouraged them to adapt and to shape how AI will be used in the future – rather than for that to shape them.

“The question is not whether AI will shape the world. It will,” Schmidt said. “The question is whether you will have shaped artificial intelligence.”

The student body’s response to Schmidt’s remarks comes days after students graduating from the University of Central Florida booed Gloria Caulfield, a real estate executive, when she spoke of “the rise of artificial intelligence is the next Industrial Revolution” – and about “living in a time of profound change”.

“Woop, what happened?” she asked upon hearing the negative reaction. “OK, I struck a chord.”

She acknowledged to applause that just a few years ago AI was not an issue. “We’ve got a bipolar topic here, I see,” she said.

To renewed boos, she said: “AI capabilities are in the palm of our hands.”

The Pew Research Center has found that about half of Americans felt the increased prevalence of AI in their daily lives made them feel “more concerned than excited”. But those fears may be elevated in areas where technology is more easily adopted to replicate information technology work, reshaping that workforce.

At the sciences-focused Carnegie Mellon University recently, Nvidia’s chief executive officer, Jensen Huang, told graduates there was no better time to “begin your life’s work” than now, even as companies lay off workers.

Huang made the case that AI will be a net positive for humanity, said that it was closing the “technology divide” and maintained new opportunities would favor young people.

“Now it’s your time to realize your dreams, and the timing could not be more perfect,” he said. While AI will automate tasks, “change every job” and even eliminate some occupations, “many new jobs and entire new industries will be created,” Huang said.

“AI is not likely to replace you, but someone using AI better than you might.”

After Schmidt’s mixed reception in Arizona, a spokesperson for the university said he had been invited for his “extraordinary” contributions to tech and innovation.