AI Voice at Pace University Commencement Sparks Outrage Over Name Mispronunciations

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Graduates at Pace University in New York City were left frustrated this month when an artificial intelligence system, used to announce names during the commencement ceremony, fumbled pronunciations despite prior efforts to ensure accuracy. A viral video shows students scanning a QR code on their smartphones, after which an AI voice reads their names aloud—a process that many likened to using a self-checkout machine, turning a proud academic milestone into an impersonal transaction.

The university, which charges over $50,000 annually in tuition, had directed students well ahead of the event to a website where they could phonetically spell their names and confirm the pronunciation. The FAQ on Pace's website stated: "To ensure your name is pronounced correctly, you must register to attend Commencement through Tassel by Wednesday, April 23." Tassel, a private company, claims to have assisted more than 600 schools over two decades, offering "live ceremony stage-crossing software" that uses AI and proprietary multilingual models to ensure "accurate pronunciation." The company boasts a database of over 2 million names, phonemes, and linguistic patterns.

Despite these measures, some graduates reported that the AI still got their names wrong. One student commented on Instagram: "They told us to write our names phonetically so it’s said correctly, and they still said my name wrong, which is forever documented in videos." Another graduate noted that a human announcer would have done a run-through to check pronunciations, a process that "didn’t take that long, and was less weird than showing your phone for them to scan."

Wider Backlash Across Campuses

The controversy extends beyond Pace. Student journalists at Northeastern University, which also used Tassel, published an op-ed in The Huntington News arguing that the institution should "read our names at graduation, it’s the least you can do." The piece, written by student Henry Bova, emphasized that a human voice could "reciprocate our sense of joy and can understand the gravity of the moment and the academic rigor that we endured to get to this point," whereas an AI reduces recognition to "a menial task to push through with brute computations."

At the University of North Georgia, an online petition against the use of an AI speaker for graduation has gathered over 2,000 signatures. West Chester University in Pennsylvania went further, abandoning the AI altogether earlier this month, as reported by Axios.

Some observers noted the irony of AI encroaching on the very graduates it was meant to honor. A Reddit user joked: "A whole lifetime of studies and 100k in debt just to have your name announced by the very entity that’s going to make your studies useless."

However, not all feedback was negative. One Reddit user defended the technology, saying: "I appreciate that everyone had the chance to hear their name pronounced correctly. Imagine being an international student and worried that someone will butcher your name. I’m ok with the solution the university gave here."

The incident raises broader questions about the appropriate use of AI in ceremonies that carry deep personal significance, where human interaction and empathy are often valued over efficiency. As universities increasingly adopt such technologies, the balance between innovation and tradition remains a point of contention.