In Focus delivers deeper coverage of the political, cultural, and ideological issues shaping America. Published daily by senior writers and experts, these in-depth pieces go beyond the headlines to give readers the full picture. You can find our full list of In Focus pieces here.I have taught liberal arts college students for nearly two decades. One of the privileges of the seminar table is candor and an intimacy that develops over many weeks. My students regularly and honestly tell me what they actually do: what they read and what they skim, what they trust and what they avoid. And for the past year, they have been telling me something that cuts against a steady stream of headlines about higher education: They have rejected artificial intelligence.Not because they cannot use it — they are digital natives who master new tools in minutes. Rather, my students have tried AI, weighed it, and found it wanting.
Sarah Lawrence College students are not typical, and I would never pretend otherwise. But they are not as unusual as people assume. In my years here, I have learned that Sarah Lawrence students have been a harbinger of where American culture is heading. They were on the front lines and ahead of the curve on campus protests, the social justice movement, the rise of DEI, or the post-Oct. 7 protests, all of which took hold months or years before sweeping the rest of the country. When my students move, America tends to follow. The 2026 commencement season suggests that this pattern is holding. At the University of Arizona, former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt was booed repeatedly the moment he turned to AI. At the University of Central Florida, graduates jeered a speaker who called AI the next industrial revolution. At Middle Tennessee State University, a music executive answered the boos with “Deal with it,” quieting no one. These were not fringe protests at boutique liberal arts coastal schools. They were big public universities in Arizona, Florida, and Tennessee, and the reaction was spontaneous and fairly uniform.New polling shows what my students are sharing may be a genuine generational judgment, too. The latest Voices of Gen Z survey from Gallup, the Walton Family Foundation, and GSV Ventures, fielded in early 2026 among more than 1,500 Americans aged 14 to 29, found that while weekly AI use has held steady at about half the cohort, feelings have soured dramatically over one year. Excitement about AI fell 14 points, to just 22%. Hopefulness dropped to 18%. Anger jumped nine points, to 31%. Even daily users, the people who know these tools best, are 18 points less excited than a year ago.I suspect that many young people believe AI is costing them something real. The same Gen Z survey revealed that only 46% of Gen Zers now say AI helps them learn faster, down from 53%. More say it harms rather than helps their ability to think carefully about information, 42% to 25%. Fully 8 in 10 say relying on AI will likely make it harder for them to learn in the future. Among employed Gen Zers, 48% say the workplace risks of AI outweigh its benefits, three times the share who say the reverse.The rest of the country seems to agree. Pew Research Center’s June 2026 report, based on a February survey of more than 5,000 adults, found people expect AI to do society more harm than good. Forty percent predict a negative impact over the next two decades, against just 16% who expect a positive one. Nearly two-thirds (63%) say the technology is moving too fast. Seven in 10 (71%) expect it to make their personal data less secure. Bruce Perry, 17, demonstrates Character AI, an artificial intelligence chatbot software that allows users to chat with popular characters such as EVE from Disney’s 2008 animated film, WALL-E, Tuesday, July 15, 2025, in Russellville, Ark. (AP Photo/Katie Adkins)
