We need to talk about how we talk about AI.

You’ve seen the videos of college commencement speakers including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt getting booed for extolling the virtues of AI. Students understand how AI will rip through the knowledge economy better than most of us — they’ve been using it to write term papers for years. And they have every reason to hate it — more of them are graduating without jobs than at any point in modern history, outside of recessions. (My colleague Reed Albergotti’s advice for graduation speakers: Nobody has ever been booed for mentioning dogs or the importance of sunscreen.)

The capital class needs a new vocabulary, too. Their current one is at turns rosy and robotic, maddeningly passive, and tin-eared. Shopify’s CEO said the company’s AI-caused hiring freeze is leading to “really fun discussions.” Sam Altman is at least honest about the coming tsunami, but suggested that the vanishing jobs were never “real work” to begin with. Jamie Dimon’s advice to people whose formative social years were spent glued to screens during the pandemic: “Learn EQ.” Terrified people just starting their careers are being told to be more curious, more adaptable, and better in meetings. They’ve never been invited to one!

Standard Chartered’s CEO, announcing the phaseout of 7,800 jobs by 2030, talked about replacing “lower-value human capital,” then said his comments were taken out of context. They weren’t; they were just said in a different context — an event for shareholders. AI messaging sounds different for investors, who want profits, than for employees, who are a cost.

A better script goes something like this: Most of us are going to use this technology to do the same amount of business with fewer people and fatter margins, because that’s what our shareholders pay us to do. If we stumble into new businesses along the way, great; we’ll hire people to grow those. But most of us run incumbent companies with bad track records of incubating startups, so that probably won’t happen. Try Silicon Valley — they’re good at launching new things. Oh wait, they’re firing people faster than we are. Eight-person startups don’t need a ninth because, of course, AI. We are not in a great position to retrain our existing workers, and even if we were, AI is widening the skills gap faster than we can retrain people. New jobs will get created, but they will mostly not go to the people who lost the old ones. We don’t have a plan for that. Try the government.

Few politicians have better answers. “If we simply do a traditional government training program, we’re going to screw it up,” Democratic Sen. Mark Warner said last month at Semafor World Economy. “Boy, oh, boy.” Vice President JD Vance’s promise that AI will make us “more productive, more prosperous, and more free” echoes what globalization enthusiasts said in the 1990s. It took two decades for those promises to ring hollow to broad swaths of Americans, who revolted in a populist backlash. It will happen faster this time.

“AI will be the number one issue of the 2028 election,” said Christopher McKelvy, co-founder of VC firm K. Ventures (and a member of the Kennedy clan). “We have to make the case not only for how the risks will be managed, but for how this technology will improve the day-to-day life of the average American family. Until we do that, we shouldn’t expect anyone to vote for it.”

The Class of 2026, and the parents who footed the bill for their education, will be a constituency for somebody. When the pitchforks come out, they won’t stop with the politicians.