"I think it should stand for," one 9-year-old says. Here's why kids of all ages are calling AI "disgusting" and "creepy." Forget cheating on homework and chatbot friends. Some kids are getting in on a new AI trend: thinking it sucks. In the four years since chatbots went mainstream, and their marketing campaigns went into overdrive, young people have grown increasingly skeptical of the hype around LLMs. Yes, many of them still use the tech for school assignments and companionship, but according to market research firm YPulse, 37 percent of teens aged 13 to 17 cringe when they see AI content like music and videos, and more than half worry about misinformation and deepfakes.

The European Union has fined Google 890 million euros ($1bn), saying the technology giant broke digital antitrust rules by steering users of Google Play and its search engine towards its own services and apps at the expense of rivals. Thursday's penalty is the latest in Brussels' crackdown on Big Tech, which has seen the bloc lead the world in reining in the largest firms from Silicon Valley to Beijing. The European Commission, the bloc's executive branch, said it was acting in the interest of consumers. "The best products should succeed because they're better, not because they're owned by the company running the search engine. And European consumers have a right to be told by app developers where to sign up to the best offers, even when the app store owner does not get a cut," said Teresa Ribera, the commission's executive vice president for clean, just and competitive transition.

Last month, more than a hundred Stanford students left their own graduation to protest Google's military contracts and deals with ICE. Two organizers, Amanda Campos and Eva Jones, tell us why. Are the kids all right? The answer to that question probably depends on your criteria. At the very least, I can tell you that some of them are most definitely very mad. The anger percolating among America's youth was on display this graduation season, as college students across the country booed and jeered several high-profile commencement speakers who dared discuss--let alone extol the benefits of-- artificial intelligence . While AI use among college kids is widespread, so too is the fear and mistrust about what the technology might mean for the future. A recent Gallup poll found that Gen Z sentiment toward AI has significantly declined, with only 22 percent of respondents expressing excitement about the tech--and anxiety around AI affecting 42 percent of them. Among the commencement speech chaos, though, one school stood out to me: Stanford University. The California-based institution, long a key hub for Silicon Valley recruiting and a pipeline into elite tech gigs, this year saw more than a hundred students walk out of Google CEO Sundar Pichai's remarks to graduates. Ironically, Pichai didn't explicitly mention AI in his address at all.

Gowanus the media puppet probably shouldn't even be talking to me. Made of literal garbage--his origin story is that he was born in a dumpster in his namesake neighborhood in Brooklyn--he's the media representative for the Summer of Ludd, a Luddite festival that took place in New York earlier this month. The festival, which WIRED attended, included everything from workshops on how to flirt IRL to an evidence box, where people could submit testimonies on how Big Tech has negatively impacted their lives. Its rules were simple: Be present. No phones, recordings, or photographs allowed. So, philosophically speaking, it is somewhat contrary to Gowanus' beliefs to be in a podcast recording studio at Condé Nast's Manhattan offices. But he's pragmatic, telling us he wants to reach people, so he's willing to meet them where they're at. Still, he has some conditions--presented to me on a handwritten contract. Namely, that we not clip short-form video of the show, in an effort to encourage people to engage with the full interview. In a compromise, we agree to only clip Gowanus explaining the contract. You might be wondering why Summer of Ludd and its movement are represented by a puppet. It's a nod to the original Luddites, British textile workers who anonymously organized against being replaced by technology during the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century. While the term "Luddite" has since become a derogatory way to refer to someone who opposes technology, there's a renaissance happening--and it's surprisingly being heavily embraced by Gen Z. Gowanus offers anonymity to the people behind the growing trend. I was curious about how being a modern-day Luddite works in practical terms--even organizing this interview was a challenge, because the Summer of Ludd folks weren't necessarily quick to reply to emails. And I wanted to know why the first generation to ever grow up totally online seems to be leading the charge on having less screen time.

New York City's Summer of Ludd festival is teaching people how to live offline amid the suffocating presence of Big Tech. A papier-mâché woman is the backdrop to a play about the Luddite movement. On a Sunday evening in the middle of Tompkins Square Park in New York City's East Village, hundreds of people gather in front of a giant papier-mâché face of a woman wearing a crown. She's the backdrop of a play, her body made up of curtains that look like a dress but serve a dual purpose, allowing actors to scurry on and offstage. I'm here to watch a performance called " Luddite Recreations," which is a history of the Luddite movement--a group of artisans and textile workers who resisted the adoption of machines during the early years of the Industrial Revolution in England and whose resistance to being displaced from their work was met with violence by the British monarchy.

Courts are holding Big Tech accountable for harming children, while lawmakers push protections like KOSA and the App Store Accountability Act to safeguard kids online.

Pose your questions ahead of our May 8 livestream about the trial that could determine the fate of OpenAI. Two of Big Tech's most influential billionaires, Sam Altman and Elon Musk, will go head-to-head in a highly anticipated trial beginning April 27. In Musk v. Altman a judge, advised by a jury, will ultimately determine whether OpenAI has strayed from its founding mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits humanity, and the ruling could influence how the world's leading AI developer controls and distributes its technology. For now, you can learn more about the trial here . On May 8, a panel of WIRED experts will go live to answer your questions about this consequential case.

Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey have different visions for how to use AI for management purposes, but both imagine a system of heightened control. Silicon Valley moguls have lately complained that too many people are too negative about artificial intelligence. They're likewise frustrated by stalled AI adoption among major corporations that aren't seeing the lucrative efficiencies promised by Big Tech. But if consumers and corporations are proving resistant to AI's acceleration, it hasn't stopped billionaire CEOs from charging ahead with their personal fantasies of what the technology can do. On April 13, the Financial Times reported that Meta is working up a photorealistic, three-dimensional AI avatar of chief exec Mark Zuckerberg, according to several people at the company.

Less than a decade ago, Google employees scuttled any military use of its AI. The standoff between Anthropic and the Pentagon has forced the tech industry to once again grapple with the question of how its products are used for war - and what lines it will not cross. Amid Silicon Valley's rightward shift under Donald Trump and the signing of lucrative defense contracts, big tech's answer is looking very different than it did even less than a decade ago. Anthropic's feud with the Trump administration escalated three days ago as the AI firm sued the Department of Defense, claiming that the government's decision to blacklist it from government work violated its first amendment rights. The company and the Pentagon have been locked in a months-long standoff, with Anthropic attempting to prohibit its AI model from being used for domestic mass surveillance or fully autonomous lethal weapons.

Switching to big tech alternatives is easier than you might imagine. Switching to big tech alternatives is easier than you might imagine. T here's not much to love about big tech these days. So many ills can be laid at its door: social media harms, misinformation, polarisation, mining and misuse of personal data, environmental negligence, tax avoidance, the list goes on. Added to which, Silicon Valley's leaders seem all too keen to cosy up to the Trump administration, to shower the president with bribes - sorry, gifts - and remain silent about his worsening political overreach. And that's before we get to the rampant " enshittification ", as the tech writer Cory Doctorow describes it, which means that by design many big tech products have become less useful and more extractive than they were when we originally signed up to them.