Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns in an autonomous Waymo UBER ride approaching a round about in which a crash comes perilously close to transpiring. Burns enjoyed the 15-minute ride, of which he filmed it all, on Saturday, January 10, 2026.
Today’s Sound Off Louisiana feature, we believe, is one which everyone will find enjoyable and entertaining but is also a feature whose goal is to convey a very serious message.
Shortly after delivering a “State of the University Address,” then-LSU Interim President Matt Lee appeared before the Baton Rouge Press Club (BRPC) on September 15, 2025. In our minds, and we think those of anyone who either attended or watched Lee’s presentation, it was most certainly a cheerleading display that was a very thinly veiled attempt to be named the permanent President of LSU.
What Lee may or may not have known at the time (we suspect that he did not know) was that LSU Board of Supervisors Member Lee Mallet had other plans. It was Mallet who put on the full court press for Gov. Jeff Landry to push the Board hard to ultimately name Wade Rousse as President (along with James Dalton as Chancellor after going a protracted time during which the two positions were consolidated into one).
On the linked BRPC feature of Lee above, Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns broke from the typical cream puff questions being posed of Lee which enabled Lee to (in our opinion) advance his cause for becoming the permanent President of LSU.
Specifically, Burns asked Lee for his thoughts on the fact that many recent college graduates, including those from Ivy League schools, are referring to college as a “scam.”
We will cite numerous publications and TV features (especially CNBC’s morning broadcasts) which have stressed that the unemployment rate for recent college graduates exceeds that of the overall population; furthermore, to a significant extent, AI is being cited as a very meaningful contributing cause for that unemployment.
Many studies and surveys are indicating that employers are dramatically cutting back on their hirings of entry-level jobs for college graduates simply because AI can perform those tasks far more efficiently, in far less time, far more effectively, and at significantly less costs than students who’ve just graduated from college.
Before we cite some of those features, however, we want to demonstrate firsthand via video a fairly recent advancement in AI, which is to facilitate autonomous (driverless) rideshares being offered by Uber and Waymo, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet (formerly Google).
To do that, Burns made a trip to Austin, Texas which is one of two markets in which autonomous rides were introduced toward the latter part of 2025 (the other market being Atlanta, Georgia). Here is a 15-minute ride taken by Burns on Saturday, January 10, 2026 in Austin, Texas during which a crash comes close to transpiring (and our viewers can assess for themselves who would have been at fault though we think the answer is pretty obvious):
1/10/26: Burns takes a Waymo autonomous (driverless) 15-minute ride in Austin, Texas for which the fare was an astoundingly-low $13.12
As Burns mentions in the video above, UBER informs its customers that 27 percent of the fare Louisiana riders pay goes to cover a mandatory insurance policy. From the preceding link (which encourages consumers to take action to bring down those costs):
At the root of the problem is personal-injury lawyers targeting the rideshare industry for unreasonably large payouts that benefit them, attracted by the arbitrarily high insurance requirements.
At Uber, safety is a top priority, and we feel strongly that every ride should be insured.
Uber is leading advocacy efforts across the country to push for and pass commonsense legislative changes that keep all trips insured while bringing down costs, saving you more on rides.
The UBER page includes a quick signup mechanism to stay informed on efforts to bring down those insurance costs, and we obviously signed up, after which we were encouraged to “spread the word,” which we’re doing on this feature. If anyone reading this feature would like to also sign up, just click on the previous link and do so.
As Burns makes clear in the commentary during the 15-minute ride, AI is going to advance forward at an astoundingly fast pace, and that advancement is both presently affecting the job market for college graduates, and it most certainly is going to do so at an ever accelerating pace going forward.
We have heard that President Trump plans to soon mandate to the U. S. Department of Education that AI be integrated into the learning experiences at universities in order to produce the most job-ready graduates possible. We believe Trump is smart to do so.
As promised above, here are just a few recent publications which tout the present and expected future impacts of AI on current and future college graduates (as well as those on up through middle management):
5/30/25: NY Times: Job Market Apocalypse May Already Be Here for Recent College Graduates. Quick Summation: Companies are rapidly automating entry-level work with AI, viewing recent grads as “expensive and expendable.” The article stresses that entry-level positions are being displaced by AI at higher rates, contributing to a crisis for new graduates entering industries phasing out junior roles in favor of AI tools.
6/8/25: PSB News: How AI may be robbing recent college grads of traditional entry-level jobs.
7/11/25: CBS News: AI is new obstacle facing recent college grads looking for jobs. From the feature:
Experts say that because AI is currently best at the kind of rote, repetitive tasks that are a staple of entry-level work, the very nature of what such roles consist of is likely to change.
“The AI piece is becoming more integrated, which is requiring a redefinition of what an entry-level role looks like and the types of skills that might be be needed,” Christine Cruzvergara, chief education strategy officer at Handshake, told CBS MoneyWatch. “So it’s critical for new graduates to make sure they are exposing themselves to AI and learning how to use it.”
7/20/25: Bloomberg – AI’s takeover of entry-level tasks is making college grads’ job hunt harder. Quick Summation: Job postings are plunging for young people, resulting in much higher unemployment among them, particularly in fields like tech and finance.
9/7/25: CNBC: AI is not just eliminating entry-level jobs. It’s the end of a career ladder as we know it. From that feature:
“The key will be in how new grads harness their capabilities to become experts so they are seen as desirable tech-savvy workers who are at the forefront of AI’s advances,” she said.
But she concedes that may not offer much comfort to the current crop of recent grads looking for jobs right now. “My heart goes out to the new grads of 2024, 2025, and 2026, as they are entering during a time of uncertainty,” Doshay said, describing it is a much more vulnerable group entering the workforce than ones further into the future.
Universities are turning their schools into AI training grounds, with several institutions striking major deals with companies like Anthropic and OpenAI.
So, as frustrated as then-Interim LSP President Lee appeared to be at Burns’ question, there was a reason he posed the question, and that reason is authoritatively outlined above. Being blunt, given Lee’s bury-your-head-in-the-sand answer, if we were to grade him on his performance, a curve would be necessitated for him to earn a grade of “D-.”
Let’s hope that Rousse and Dalton can earn a better grade during their LSU tenures entailing AI integration into the learning experience and that LSU can continue its reputation for turning out quality, job-ready graduates. Otherwise, both Rousse and Dalton just may be faced with some really angry graduating seniors and their parents who may join in the current chorus that so many recent college graduates are exclaiming on Tik Tok videos that college is, “nothing short of a scam.”
Completely agree!
I bet this video made a lot of baby boomers nervous.
There is no doubt that AI will change the way society views intelligence. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman famously said that no child born today will ever be as smart as AI. And as this feature points out, we all have AI in our pocket (cell phones)!! If college presidents like Lee don’t wake up, AI will replace college in much the same way calculators replaced long division. It is not surprising college presidents are nervous. I would be nervous too if my entire business model depended on me selling something for $100,000 that anyone could get for free. I would also add when you hear someone say, “but AI makes mistakes,” you are talking to someone who has his head in the sand, which is scary considering Mr. Lee’s position. It is technically true that AI makes mistakes, but implicit in that statement is humans never make mistakes! Yeah, right.
This video is a fascinating example. If you look closely, the other vehicle merged into Robert’s lane from behind him. It is very likely the other driver was looking to his left at oncoming traffic and never saw Robert’s vehicle. If you slow the video down, you will see Robert’s vehicle take evasive action to avoid the collision before a human driver would have even noticed the other vehicle was there. Unlike humans, AI does have eyes in the back of its head. In fact, it was likely tracking the other vehicle with millimeter precision and when it detected the risk, it reacted in a fraction of a second, far faster than any human could react. Interestingly, my wife was in an accident identical to this scenario (she was in the outside lane of a two-lane traffic circle and never saw the truck that hit her back left quarter panel). There is a better than average likelihood that AI prevented Robert from being in an accident. AI doesn’t have to be perfect; it only has to be better than humans, and for some of us, that is a pretty low bar.
AI will replace existing jobs, but it is not just new college graduates. How many long-haul truckers are there in the US? 3.5 million?