• 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.

• Sarah J. Maas announced the release dates for the next two “ACOTAR” novels on “Call Her Daddy.”
• The two books will be released on October 27, 2026, and January 12, 2027.
• Maas said the two books will be separate volumes of the sixth “ACOTAR” story.

After five long years of waiting, Sarah J. Maas fans can rejoice — the sixth “A Court of Thorns and Roses” book finally has a release date. Well, it actually has release dates.

On March 4, 2026, the author appeared on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast with Alex Cooper, where she announced the next “ACOTAR” book would be published on October 27, 2026.

The work is eagerly awaited not only by fans but also by Maas’ publisher, Bloomsbury. The company’s sales fell 10% for the 2025-2026 fiscal year because Maas didn’t release a new book, Publishers Weekly reported.

Interestingly, though, Maas said her next novel will be just part one of the sixth “ACOTAR” story, with parts two and three released together in January 2027. Part four will be released separately.

Here’s everything we know about “ACOTAR” book six so far.

Warning: Some spoilers for Maas’ work ahead.

Maas is releasing book six of ‘A Court of Thorns and Roses’ in multiple volumes

In July 2025, Mass posted a reel on Instagram revealing that she had finished a first draft of the sixth “ACOTAR” book. In the video, Maas closes a notebook labeled with “ACOTAR 6” and an arrow, shuts a laptop, and pops a bottle of bubbly.

“First drafts DONE,” she captioned the post.

Fans quickly flooded her comments with questions about why “draft” was plural and what the arrow next to six meant, but Maas didn’t explain further until Cooper asked her about it during her “Call Her Daddy” appearance.

“I will say that that was ACOTAR six with the arrow pointing forward to indicate things going ahead of that,” she said. “And it is for the next ACOTAR book, which is coming out on October 27 of this year.”

Maas went on to say that she finished the book while writing in Montana over the summer of 2025, but declined to reveal the book’s title or which characters from the world of “ACOTAR” will be telling the story. She also didn’t share the novel’s length, which she said was for a specific reason.

“OK, well, part of why I guess it’s tricky to talk about the length of this book is because this book’s coming out October 27, and then on January 12, like two months later, I can’t do math, whatever that is, the next ACOTAR book will be coming out,” Maas said. “So there will be two books within, like, a very short span.”

As her fans will know, Maas’ books are typically split into parts, separating different sections of the story she is telling. However, when it comes to the sixth “ACOTAR” book, Maas said the individual parts became longer than she anticipated as she started writing, with part one coming in at 400 pages at one point. At first, that seemed like a problem, as the book would be difficult to print if it were too long.

As she continued writing, Maas decided the parts didn’t have to live in one physical book.

“I decided I wasn’t gonna approach this project from a traditional format of a book,” she said. “What if this book was really long? Like, what if it took me more than a thousand pages to tell the story that needed to be told, the arc that I wanted to create from start to finish?”

Maas said the story for “ACOTAR” six was ultimately divided into four parts, though it is still one cohesive story. Part one is the novel that Bloomsbury will publish on October 27, 2026, and parts two and three will be published together as one volume on January 12, 2027. Maas has yet to write or give a publication date for part four, but she said all three volumes would be published “in a very short time.”

Although the works will be published individually, Maas told Cooper she still hopes readers treat them as one story once they are all out in the world.

“It’s meant to be read ideally as one massive, massive story as opposed to in a trilogy,” she said. “It’s not a trilogy. Like, arcs aren’t wrapped up.”

Maas also posted about the new books on her Instagram on Wednesday, sharing a photo of her notebook and two photos of a Montana skyline. She gave more insight into why she decided to publish the parts as separate volumes in her caption.

“I know how long you’ve waited,” she wrote. “I know how much these characters mean to you. And I also know these stories deserve more than speed and deadlines. They deserve my best self. They deserve the right moment.”

“When the moment came, what I thought would be one book… very quickly became something else,” she added. “The story just kept expanding, and I couldn’t wait to share a single part of it any longer!!”

The next ‘ACOTAR’ has been in the works for years

Although Maas hadn’t given detailed information about the sixth “ACOTAR” book before her “Call Her Daddy” appearance, it wasn’t a total shock that her next work would bring readers back to Prythian.

In March 2023, Bloomsbury announced that Maas had signed a deal for three more books with the publisher. At the time, she was already under contract for four titles, including “House of Flame and Shadow,” the third installment in her “Crescent City” series, published in January 2024.

In September 2023, Maas gave readers their first clue as to what would come next in the six books she had left under her contract, telling Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings during a “Live Talks Los Angeles” appearance that she was “drafting” the next “ACOTAR” book — and having a blast doing it.

“I will say that I’ve become so focused and obsessed with writing this book,” she told Hobbs and Billings. “It’s like that feeling of having a crush or when you’re first, like, obsessed with someone, and you’re just thinking about it nonstop.”

Likewise, in a January 2024 interview with Jenna Bush Hager, Maas said her next published work would be the sixth installment of “ACOTAR.”

“I’m very, very excited about that one,” Maas said of the coming book, though she didn’t give any details about it.

The book seems to have transformed since those comments based on Maas’ conversation with Cooper.

Clues about the future of ‘ACOTAR’ in Maas’ other works

Maas has been tight-lipped about the contents of her coming work, but the other books in “ACOTAR” and her “Crescent City” series can offer clues.

The most recent book in the “ACOTAR” series, “A Court of Silver Flames,” was released in 2021 and focused on Nesta Archeron. The first four books were told from the perspective of Feyre Archeron, while Maas seemed to usher in a new era of the series by writing from her sister’s perspective in “ACOSF.”

Nesta also appeared in “House of Flame and Shadow,” which created a multiverse between “ACOTAR,” “Crescent City,” and the “Throne of Glass” series. It also offered insight into what might be happening in Prythian at the start of a new “ACOTAR” novel.

In “House of Flame and Shadow,” Nesta and Azriel discover the magical prison in Prythian, which lies atop what was once a powerful fae court, alongside Bryce Quinlan, the protagonist from “Crescent City.”

They also learn that Rhysand’s lineage traces back to the fae who ruled the prison, which would have been the Dusk Court, creating the potential for Rhys to rule two courts.

Nesta also seems to have connections to those long-forgotten fae, as she bears an eight-pointed star tattoo that matches a chamber in the prison and the design on a sword called Gwydion that had been missing from Prythian for centuries. The sword had been with Bryce’s family on her planet, Midgard, where it is called the Starsword.

In “HOFAS,” Bryce brought the sword to Prythian with her when she sought aid from the fae there, and she ultimately stole Gwydion’s twin, a dagger called Truth-Teller, from Azriel. She used the weapons together to bring peace to her planet, but she returned the dagger to Azriel — alongside a magical mask Nesta let her borrow — at the novel’s end. In the same scene, she gifted Gwydion to Nesta.

“I think that eight-pointed star was tattooed on you for a reason. Take that sword and go figure out why,” Bryce told Nesta.

It’s possible Maas was setting up a continuation of Nesta’s story for her next “ACOTAR” story in the scene, which may see her explore her power and connections to the Starborn fae, as they are called on Midgard.

Elain’s role in future ‘ACOTAR’ books

Maas tied “ACOTAR” and “Crescent City” together primarily through Nesta and Azriel in “House of Flame and Shadow.”

Still, Maas might turn to other characters in Prythian in her next “ACOTAR” novel, or she may balance multiple plots given the length of the coming volumes. For instance, Maas told Eva Chen during an appearance on “Live Talks Los Angeles” in February 2021 that she planned to write a book from the third Archeron sister’s perspective — Elain.

In “A Court of Silver Flames,” Elain had settled into life at the Night Court, refusing to explore her mating bond with Lucien. After breaking ties with Tamlin and the Spring Court, Lucien served as an emissary to the human lands for the Night Court, keeping his distance from Elain because being around her was painful.

Maas also spoke to Cooper about Elain and Lucien’s mating bond, indicating that she was eager to explore how it differs from others we see in her works.

“I think Elain’s got her own trauma and shit that she’s going through right now,” she said, adding that Lucien’s involvement in bringing Elain to the fae world is a barrier to their relationship.

“So exploring a concept of a free will, what does that look like with a mating bond?” Maas said. “What does that mean? And does nature get it wrong sometimes? Does it get it right sometimes?”

Maas said she was “interested” as a writer to explore what it meant for someone not to desire to be mated, which could mean she wrote about that topic in her coming work.

Elain also seems to have an attraction to Azriel in the text, though Maas juxtaposed their bond with how ill-fitting aspects of life at the Night Court are for Elain during a visit to the Court of Nightmares in “ACOSF.” Some fans think Maas set up a storyline for Elain to find a home at a different court, and that Azriel will find love with Nesta’s friend Gywn instead of Elain.

Maas also hasn’t explored the full potential of Elain’s Seer powers in the series, so she will likely write more about her abilities in future “ACOTAR” novels.

• Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that Gemini 3.5 Pro will launch next month.
• Google I/O 2026 attendees groaned at the model coming out later than they’d expected.
• Google unveiled other products, including Spark and Gemini 3.5 Flash AI models, at I/O.

Gemini 3.5 Pro isn’t coming out yet, disappointing the crowd at Google’s packed flagship developer conference I/O on Tuesday.

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

Many had expected 3.5 Pro to come out at I/O, since it’s the most powerful model in the works from the tech giant.

Pichai didn’t explain why the chatbot will launch later than expected, although he did say that it’s already “showing great improvements” compared to previous versions.

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

The industry is closely watching the release of 3.5 Pro, especially after Google’s last big AI model, Gemini 3, outperformed expectations. Google’s stock has been on a tear lately as its AI models and chips perform strongly.

Google made other announcements at I/O on Tuesday. For example, it launched Spark, an AI agent that can run without keeping your laptop open. Google also released Gemini 3.5 Flash, an AI model optimized for AI agents.

• The Adidas Originals Wide Leg Satin Pants have taken over every mom Facebook group I’m in.
• They’re sold out — and have been selling out on repeat since they dropped.
• With 414 reviews and a 4.7-star rating, the hype is clearly justified.

I’m very easy to influence. So when I started seeing the Adidas Originals Wide Leg Satin Animal Print Pants pop up in almost every one of my mom and fashion groups on Facebook, I knew that they were going to become a thing.

I have been in enough mom group trend cycles to know that when something hits this fever pitch, there’s usually a reason. So I did what any reasonable person would do: I went to find them.

They are sold out everywhere

I ended up buying an XS — the only size available when I went looking for a pair three weeks ago — even though I’m typically a 4 to 6 in pants. Surprisingly, they fit perfectly. The elastic waist is doing a lot of good work here, and the wide leg silhouette is forgiving in the best way. The length runs long on smaller frames, and at 5’6”, the XS runs a tad too long on me (I’m debating whether to hem them or commit to wearing them with platforms).

The pants are currently marked down from $70 to $42 on the Adidas site — but it almost doesn’t matter because they are sold out. They have 414 reviews and a 4.7-star rating on adidas.com, which is practically a standing ovation. At discksportinggoods.com, they’ve earned a 4.8 rating from 154 reviews.

The adidas description says these are “a major pivot from a minimalist aesthetic,” and that sentence alone explains why mom groups are losing their minds over them. I’m so over minimalism, with neutral everything and quiet luxury.

They are so easy to style

At first, I wore them only with neutrals like white tees and sneakers, but these are so cool that I’ve ventured into pairing them with my checkered Vans and loud T-shirts, and those work, too.

I had also purchased the satin shirt as part of the set, but my package was lost in the mail, and I took that as a sign that maybe I only needed the pants.

I recently took a girls’ trip to Las Vegas, and I knew I had to bring my new go-to pants. I got so many compliments from other women while walking through the casinos. My friend also pointed out these Amazon dupes that were everywhere — a potential solution if you can’t find the Adidas one in your size. And they are only $24.99.

If you really want the OGs, your best bet is to check the Adidas site and Dick’s Sporting Goods repeatedly and set up stock alerts if you can. The animal print version has been restocking in waves, selling out almost immediately each time — the same pattern I saw with the platform Crocs I bought two summers ago.

I love my pants so much that I went ahead and placed an order for the Adidas x Farm Rio premium pants. These have a much bolder print, but I think I’m entering my maximalism era thanks to the brand.

My advice is that if you want the popular satin pants, get on the waitlist now. And if a size appears in your cart, do not hesitate. Worst-case scenario: if you don’t like them, you will for sure find someone who wants to buy them off you.

• At Glendale Community College’s commencement ceremony, several students’ names were misread while walking onstage.
• President Tiffany Hernandez said the college was “using a new AI system,” prompting boos from the crowd.
• The college later allowed the graduates to walk again. This time, a human read their names.

Graduation is cause for celebration. At Glendale Community College, an AI-related flub made it cause for apology.

The college’s recent graduation ceremony outside of Phoenix, Arizona ground to a halt after a naming mishap. Several students’ names weren’t called as they crossed the stage. Others were left waiting after failing to hear their name at all. Thus began a 10-minute commencement debacle, with AI to blame.

They later found an old-school solution: human name-callers.

The first sign that something was amiss began when Lorelei Konopka, the college’s vice president of academic affairs, asked the audience to “give us one second.”

The college’s president, Tiffany Hernandez, then approached the lectern to reveal the cause of the error: “We’re using a new AI system as our reader. That’s a lesson learned for us.”

The audience booed at the mention of AI. It’s something that’s been happening at a handful of commencements — though most were because of references during speeches, not because of an AI-related ceremony error.

Hernandez initially said that she would have to “disappoint many of you” by not letting them walk a second time with their names read aloud.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “There’s plenty of opportunities, I hope, to take some really good pictures, and to celebrate you with your loved ones as well.”

Konopka approached the lectern to continue the ceremony, joking, “I have the part of the ceremony that doesn’t require AI.”

After a series of long pauses, Hernandez announced that the students would be able to walk again — and this time, a human would announce their names.

“Here’s where pivoting works best,” she said.

In an email to Business Insider, a Glendale Community College representative wrote that there was a “technical issue” leading to some graduates not being named.

“While the issue was corrected during the ceremony, we are sorry for the disruption it caused during what should have been a celebratory moment for our graduates and their families,” the representative wrote. “We have also communicated directly with graduates to apologize for the experience.”

Graduate Grace Reimer told AZ Family that she noticed the error when she didn’t hear much cheering during her walk. “My family is a pretty loud family,” she said.

Reimer also posted a screenshot of a letter from the Glendale Community College president on TikTok. Hernandez wrote in the letter that they were “actively reviewing” the issue, though there was no reference to AI.

AI remains a contentious topic this graduation season. During former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s commencement address at the University of Arizona, students booed references to AI and automation.

Real estate executive Gloria Caulfield was booed at one of the University of Central Florida’s commencement ceremonies. So was Big Machine Records CEO Scott Borchetta at Middle Tennessee State University.

Borchetta’s response: “Then do something about it. It’s a tool. Make it work for you.”