Hello from Mountain View, Calif., home this week to Google’s annual developer conference and a stop on my book tour. A recap of the biggest Google news below.
But first: At Google I/O, AI got cheers and claps. At commencement speeches across the country, it’s getting boos. So right after watching yesterday’s keynote, I interviewed one of those booing students. That’s in today’s New Thing. Also: the internet’s collective roasting of Spotify’s disco logo.
Earlier this month, Gloria Caulfield, a vice president at real estate company Tavistock Development, took the stage at the University of Central Florida to deliver an uplifting message to soon-to-be grads.
Then she said, “The rise of artificial intelligence is the next Industrial Revolution.” Woof, big mistake. The students—many of whom had studied journalism, writing and filmmaking, AKA the departments currently staring directly into the AI wood chipper—began to boo.
A few days later, when former Google CEO Eric Schmidt took the commencement stage at the University of Arizona, a similar thing happened. AI. Boo! AI. More boos!
Flash forward to Tuesday morning at Google’s annual developer conference. Google executives, including current CEO Sundar Pichai, announced tons of new AI products and were met with constant cheers from employees, developers and other attendees.
The contrast couldn’t be clearer. Inside the tech world, AI progress is being met with excitement. Outside of it—especially among younger people facing a job market full of “AI will do that now” vibes—it’s being met with dread. It’s striking that some of the most vocal detractors have more than a passing familiarity with AI tools; the Class of 2026 started college the same year ChatGPT was released.
This generation is booing AI for many reasons: It’s taking entry-level jobs, it’s built off the creative works they want to be making, they seem the harms of social media and AI is gobbling up energy.
But maybe I was wrong. So I called Houda Eletr, a recent UCF journalism grad and aspiring poet, to find out exactly what she was booing. Here are some of the highlights of our conversation.
This newsletter was written and curated by Joanna Stern and Adele Lowitz. Additional reporting by Amaya Austin. See you Friday. Thank you for saving your AI boos until the end. 👩🎓🤖
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