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• Steve Wozniak gave a commencement speech at Grand Valley State University earlier this month.
• He was cheered after telling students they had AI, or “actual intelligence.”
• Students have booed some other execs who championed AI during their graduation speeches.

Somehow, Steve Wozniak did what other college graduation commencement speakers couldn’t this year: get applause when talking about AI.

The Apple cofounder took the stage during Grand Valley State University’s graduation ceremony earlier this month. During his speech, Wozniak offered reassurance to new graduates who are entering the workforce at the height of the AI revolution.

“You have AI — actual intelligence,” Wozniak said.

The remark garnered laughs and applause from the audience.

“It would take too long to go deeply into what I think about AI, but we’ve been trying to create a brain,” Wozniak said. “Is there a way we can duplicate a routine a trillion times and have it work like a brain? AI is one of those attempts.”

While Wozniak delivered his speech without interruption, the same can’t be said of some other AI-forward commencement speakers. In the weeks that followed, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and real estate executive Gloria Caulfield were both booed for their comments about AI at two separate graduate ceremonies.

AI is looming over new graduates as they enter the job market. The tech is changing the landscape, from the skills candidates need to how companies assess them. Its ability to automate many tasks has led some companies to conduct AI-related layoffs.

During his commencement address, Wozniak reflected on working at Apple and offered students some advice as they begin their careers.

“You should always try to think different,” he said. “Don’t follow the same steps as a million other people. Think, is there something I can do a little different?”

• Shania Twain is no stranger to daring fashion; she’s been rocking bold outfits since the ’90s.
• In the past, she’s worn cutout dresses, plunging necklines, and see-through looks.
• More recently, she’s opted for floor-length gowns and statement accessories.

Who would Shania Twain be without her daring wardrobe?

The country musician has been rocking eye-catching, envelope-pushing outfits since her career began in the 1990s. And she’s only continued to evolve her style over time.

These are the most daring looks she’s worn, from the stage to red carpets.

Shania Twain has always been a fan of daring fashion. Just look at the velvet cutout dress she wore in 1998.

The black gown was asymmetrical with a single strap, an uneven cutout across her waist, and smaller slits down its skirt that extended the length of her leg.

There’s also the corseted minidress she wore while performing at the 1998 Grammys.

She accessorized the bold look with crystal-lined gloves, a satin choker, semi-sheer tights, and knee-high boots.

Next, the musician took her daring style to the 2002 CMA Awards.

She wore a form-fitting halter dress that was most daring up top, with a plunging, scooped neckline.

Twain donned the glittering, gold gown with diamond jewelry, long earrings, and her hair styled in curls.

By 2003, it was time for Twain to experiment with edgier looks, like the dress she wore to the American Music Awards.

Her black, long-sleeved dress was made from sheer mesh, but it was wrapped with opaque black fabric and matching straps. It also had a tulle piece attached to one side of its skirt that created a short train.

To complement the unique look, Twain also wore a crimped hairstyle and thigh-high lace-up boots.

The country star perfectly mixed glamour and drama that year when she performed at the Super Bowl XXXVII halftime show.

Her outfit included a crystal-covered bra, black shorts over fishnet tights, a sparkling black duster jacket, and a sequined white belt that wrapped around her waist and hips.

She also wore thigh-high leather boots.

She tried bold prints and colors at the 2003 CMA Awards months later.

Twain performed onstage in low-rise black cargo pants and a puffer vest buttoned only halfway.

The latter piece had a green, black, and pink swirled print that perfectly matched the design of her slouchy boots.

Fast-forward to 2012, Twain kicked off her Las Vegas residency in a semi-sheer catsuit.

The long-sleeved, high-neck piece was decorated from top to bottom with black beads in a tiger-stripe print, and her black gloves were lined with long, fabric fringe.

She wore the outfit with heeled, belted boots.

When she performed at the 2017 Grey Cup, Twain came prepared for Canada’s snowy weather.

She hit the stage in a red catsuit with a plunging neckline and a sparkling chainmail piece worn over it.

Twain also rocked furry boots, a matching jacket, and red leather gloves.

Last year, Twain put a new, daring twist on one of her most famous music-video looks.

She walked the People’s Choice Awards red carpet in a custom Rodarte dress. It had a sheer, long-sleeved bodice, a leopard-print bralette, and a floor-length velvet skirt with a waistline that dipped below her belly button.

The outfit — which seemingly called back to her ensemble from the “That Don’t Impress Me Much” music video — also included a leopard-print hood and shoulder piece.

Then, at the 2023 Grammys, Twain arrived with hair as red as the carpet and a hat as big as the event.

Harris Reed designed her black-and-white polka-dot look. It featured bell-bottom pants, a bustier top, and a blazer worn on top.

She returned to her country roots in a bold way at the 2023 CMT Music Awards.

She first walked the red carpet in a butterfly-print dress, but later changed into a sparkling purple Chanel set that included a crop top and matching shorts. 

When some people on social media criticized the look, particularly the cut of her shorts and the plunging neckline of her top, Twain defended her daring outfit.

“For me fashion is a powerful tool that helps to convey my personality and express my creativity,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “And other than getting to hang out with my friends for the night, it’s one of my favourite things about attending award shows!”

During a 2023 concert in North Carolina, Twain hit the stage in a vibrant outfit and equally bold accessories.

She wore a pink, loose-fitting top over what appeared to be a yellow leotard, and matching jelly sandals with straps that wrapped around her legs.

She then performed in Michigan while wearing a see-through leotard.

The black garment was covered in crystals, as were her fishnet tights and knee-high boots.

To complete the outfit, Twain also wore a pink-and-purple cape that flowed behind her and layers of chunky necklaces.

In 2024, Twain arrived at the People’s Choice Country Awards in sparkling denim.

In collaboration with Levi’s, Twain helped design her denim evening gown.

The halter piece had a form-fitting bodice, a mermaid skirt, a thick, pointed collar, and all-over crystal detailing.

She wore the dramatic dress with denim gloves, a chunky ring, and a ’60s-inspired hairstyle.

This year, she chose a statement silver gown for the Academy of Country Music Awards.

The silver, strapless gown was designed by Falguni Shane Peacock.

It was covered in silver and black sequins, the latter of which were arranged in the shape of a panther across its skirt.

The dress, which was accessorized with black leather gloves, also had satin strips that flowed from her waist.

• Google delayed its Gemini 3.5 Pro AI model, disappointing some developers.
• The smaller Gemini 3.5 Flash model now powers Google’s Antigravity AI coding service.
• Feedback from 3.5 Flash will likely be used to enhance Gemini 3.5 Pro, via reinforcement learning.

Google usually saves its biggest product launches for its I/O conference every year. This time, CEO Sundar Pichai held back, and it says a lot about where the company stands in the AI coding race.

During the keynote address, Pichai told the crowd that Google’s new flagship Gemini 3.5 Pro AI model wasn’t ready yet, drawing groans from the crowd.

I was there, and I’ve spent the rest of the event coming up with a theory for the apparent delay: Google is holding this new model back for a while to get it even better at AI coding tasks.

Anthropic’s Claude Code took the world by storm last year, and OpenAI’s Codex has gotten much better recently. These frontier labs are scooping up developer mindshare and generating big revenue by enabling coders to use AI tools with agents to automate and speed up coding tasks.

It’s a revolution that’s upending Silicon Valley, and Google was probably a bit behind. But not for long.

Instead of releasing 3.5 Pro, Pichai spoke at length and with passion about another new model, the Gemini 3.5 Flash. This is a smaller model that’s faster and a lot cheaper, while being only slightly less powerful than the world’s current top models.

Google has already made 3.5 Flash the main model powering its Antigravity AI coding service. Starting today, software developers will use this tool to churn out code.

This will generate a mountain of anonymous and highly valuable data. For instance, if an engineer starts a new coding project in Antigravity and suddenly halts the task, it suggests that something in the output from Flash 3.5 wasn’t right.

Google can use this feedback data to improve the larger 3.5 Pro model, likely through reinforcement learning—a technique in which a new AI model is refined by rewarding good outputs and punishing bad outcomes.

Signals from running Antigravity on the smaller 3.5 Flash model will likely help with this process in important ways. That’s because coding is particularly good at generating clear signals for AI model development. If the code is good, it likely works. If it’s bad, it often breaks stuff.

This should give the larger 3.5 Pro model strong clues about which coding outputs worked and which didn’t.

“I know you can’t wait to get your hands on it,” Pichai said onstage. “Give us until next month to get it to you.”

So, when this big new model finally lands, I expect it to be a lot better at coding — the hottest application of generative AI right now.

Sign up for BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.

• A New Jersey city has banned new data center developments.
• The decision effectively blocks a proposed data center giant.
• The ban comes amid a backlash against a data center boom in southern New Jersey.

A city at the heart of an AI data center boom in southern New Jersey has voted to ban them.

That means one of the largest data center proposals in the state’s history is unlikely to happen.

The Millville Board of Commissioners made the decision during a meeting on Tuesday evening, writing in an ordinance that “data centers are incompatible with the City’s land use planning objectives, infrastructure capacity, and community character.”

“The Commissioners therefore determine that the construction and operation of data centers within the City would be detrimental to the public health, safety, and welfare,” the commissioners said.

The decision brings to a halt the proposed 1.4 gigawatt Millville Energy & Data Center Campus, which would have spanned over 60 acres. A1 Data Center, the company behind the project, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Southern New Jersey has emerged as something of a hub for AI data center construction, in part because of its proximity to major cities like New York and Philadelphia and its access to natural gas and transmission networks.

Several other data centers have been proposed — or are already being built — in the area, including a 300-megawatt data center in neighboring Vineland that would supply compute to Microsoft.

While large data centers have been around for decades, their scale has grown exponentially as AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic seek more compute to power their products.

Many Americans — a majority of whom are unexcited about AI, according to a recent study — are now resisting these massive data centers in their communities. They worry that they could drain their water supply, raise utility bills, cause unwanted noise, raise temperature levels, and impede their quality of life.

In its ordinance on Tuesday, the Millville commissioners cited many of these issues, writing that “large-scale data centers and similar facilities generate significant infrastructure demands.”

It also said any jobs created by the project were limited relative to its size. The companies behind data centers have argued that they are good for communities because they create jobs, though many of those jobs are in construction and temporary.

The Climate Revolution Action Network, an environmental nonprofit based in New Jersey, told Business Insider in a statement that it spent months organizing residents to oppose the Millville data center.

“This is a winning coalition and something we need to see more of across the country,” one of the group’s leaders, Kayleigh Henry, said. “These corporations may have more money than us, but they’re no match for people speaking out and making their voices heard.”

The Climate Revolution Action Network and other groups are now working to secure a statewide moratorium on data center construction.

This month, a coalition of anti-data center groups asked New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill to impose a moratorium on approving and constructing new data centers that use at least 20 megawatts of power “until regulations or legislation are implemented to protect ratepayers and consumers, maintain electric grid reliability, and minimize environmental impacts.”

• Stony Brook University is using AI to improve recycling efficiency and reduce landfill waste.
• AI models help identify non-recyclable waste to prevent contamination in recycling processes.
• Researchers are testing whether AI recycling systems can scale in real-world plants.

A pizza box can feel like a recycling pop quiz. It’s cardboard, but there’s also the greasy bottom and cheese residue. Should the box go into the blue recycling bin or into the trash?

The wrong decision may seem like a harmless toss, but it can have serious consequences — ones that technologists are hoping artificial intelligence can remedy.

Recycling facilities, or materials recovery facilities, sort and process recyclable materials such as plastic, glass, and paper, which are then sold to manufacturers to create new products.

However, if an unrecyclable item, like the grease-soaked pizza box, gets mixed in with the other valuable materials, the whole batch can be rejected and sent to a landfill. Large landfills threaten the environment and human health, and the US is among the world’s largest per-person generators of waste.

At Stony Brook University, researchers are exploring AI as part of the solution by developing an AI-assisted system to analyze and characterize municipal solid waste with far greater speed and scale than traditional methods.

Stony Brook’s project reflects a broader national trend, as scientists and engineers across the country increasingly place AI at the center of efforts to streamline recycling programs and build more efficient, effective waste management and sorting systems.

Training AI to sort trash smarter

The Stony Brook project officially kicked off in January 2025. As part of her preliminary work, Ruwen Qin, an associate professor and the project’s principal investigator, visited material recovery facilities on Long Island and spoke with staff about the challenges they face and the solutions they are interested in. “Without the collaboration from local facilities, it is impossible to conduct this type of research, because that data is essential for developing artificial intelligence algorithms,” she said.

During these site visits, Qin and her team used low-cost cameras, such as GoPros, to capture video and audio. Qin said this data was used to guide the development of the AI model.

Subsequently, the Stony Brook AI model was trained to identify paper, plastics, food waste, and fabrics and automatically estimate their quantities. The work is supported by the Stony Brook University AI Innovation Seed Grant; after receiving the grant, Qin was able to involve graduate students in the research. Qin has also closely collaborated with the university’s Waste Data and Analysis Center throughout the initiative.

“A very important task is to sample and sort the waste and try to determine what materials are in the waste stream and what the quantity is,” Qin told Business Insider. “As we train the algorithm, we can analyze samples in large quantities more efficiently than a human being.”

This process of identifying, separating, and analyzing components of a waste stream is known as characterization. It’s time-consuming and detail-oriented work. But Qin said AI can ideally expedite the process. AI models, like the one she’s developing, can pinpoint whether something unrecyclable has been mistakenly mixed with other recyclable products and prevent it from being rejected and sent to landfills.

While the project is in its early stages, Qin said her short-term goal is to provide high-quality data to researchers, which she hopes will be used to develop more affordable and accessible open-source models.

Qin added that her team will continue training the model so that it can eventually “identify different waste materials under all conditions.” She also hopes to secure additional funding to transfer the technology into real-world applications, such as material recovery facilities.

In the future, Qin said that she’s interested in merging AI with robotics: the algorithm could instruct robots on what they can and can’t take from the waste stream.

Scaling the tech

AI’s recycling algorithms are starting to trickle into the waste management industry. For example, in Colorado, AMP Robotics has developed an AI-robotics system for the factory line. And Greyparrot, a London-based startup, has an AI sorting system used in more than 20 countries in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Aurora del Carmen Munguía-López, an assistant professor at the University of Buffalo who researches recycling solutions, said when it comes to developing AI-sorting systems, there’s still work to be done. As pilot projects move from different universities into plant facilities, Munguía-López told Business Insider that part of the challenge is determining whether these algorithms can work at the scale required in professional settings.

While AI’s energy-hungry data centers are creating environmental risks, Munguía-López said its overall impact could still be positive if the technology increases recycling rates, reduces reliance on fossil-fuel-based plastic production, and lowers greenhouse gas emissions.

Given the tech’s potential to improve recycling and reduce emissions, Qin wants to ensure that Stony Brook’s AI model is an intellectual product that anyone can use to their advantage. “We want to make the data, the model, and the technology publicly available to benefit society,” she said.

• A Google executive said he’d bet that AI will not lead to mass layoffs.
• SVP James Manyika said AI will eliminate some jobs, create others, and change many more.
• He joins other tech executives pushing back on AI job-loss fears as public skepticism grows.

Will AI crush the jobs economy? James Manyika, a senior Google-Alphabet executive, bets it won’t.

On Casey Newton’s “Platformer,” released on Tuesday, Manyika said he does not buy the most extreme predictions about near-term mass job loss from AI.

Newton asked Manyika about Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei, predicting that unemployment is about to spike because of new tech.

“I’ll just say: let’s take the bet,” he replied. “Some of those predictions were made two years ago — that in two years, 50% of jobs would be wiped out. Well, two years is up. Let’s take a look. And anybody who makes that prediction for two years from now, I’m willing to take the bet.”

Manyika has a deep background in AI research. He has a Ph.D. in AI and robotics from Oxford, co-chaired the UN Secretary-General’s AI advisory body, and has served as chairman of the McKinsey Global Institute while studying automation and the future of work. He’s now a senior vice president at Google and Alphabet, where he focuses on research, technology, and society.

In 2017, he coauthored a widely cited McKinsey report titled “Jobs lost, jobs gained,” which argued that automation would produce a mix of effects on workers: some jobs would decline, some new jobs would be created, and many more existing jobs would change.

Manyika said that the framework is still accurate.

“The research hasn’t changed very much,” he said. “The debate that people have is, what’s the mix of those three things? As opposed to, are these three things going to happen?”

Public skepticism toward AI is growing. In early May, YouGov published a poll finding that seven in 10 Americans believe that AI is advancing “too fast.” Gallup also found that seven in 10 Americans opposed local construction of the data centers that fuel AI systems.

Those concerns are showing up in public life: some college graduates have booed commencement speakers who talk about AI, while several data center projects have sparked protests.

Manyika suggested the AI industry has contributed to public anxiety by talking about mass job losses, and said companies also need to show that AI infrastructure will not raise energy costs for communities.

“It doesn’t help when we in the AI field talk about wiping out 50% of jobs,” he said. “We’re probably impacting the possibilities of this technology having extraordinary impact by, quite frankly, scaring everybody — when in fact that fear is unfounded.”

He joins a growing number of tech executives pushing back on predictions of mass AI job losses.

Palo Alto Networks’ CEO, Nikesh Arora, called concerns that AI is supplanting jobs a “fallacy,” while Amazon Web Services’ CEO, Matt Garman, said his company is still planning to hire 11,000 software engineering employees this year.

Silicon Valley has gone through a fresh wave of job losses. Layoff-tracking firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that through April, tech companies have announced 85,411 layoffs, a 33% increase from the same period last year.

“That’s not to say we shouldn’t worry about AI’s labor market effects. We should,” Manyika said. “I just don’t think they’ve happened yet at the scale anybody’s concerned about.”

Manyika maintains that AI’s largest impact will be on how workers complete their tasks.

“The biggest effect is the jobs-changed part,” Manyika added. “The nature of the job itself shifts. This is what happened with bank tellers. This is what happens with radiologists. We still have the category ‘bank teller,’ but I can guarantee what a bank teller does today is not what a bank teller in 1970 did.”

Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.