Have we tried turning off society and turning it back on again? We need a complete cultural reset, because there are actually sports betting providers that let people gamble on Little League World Series (LLWS) outcomes.

For the uninitiated, the LLWS is an annually televised tournament where ten- to twelve-year-old baseball players from around the world face off. It’s a pretty wholesome event, though hopefully not too traumatizing for the kids who drop routine fly balls on a global broadcast that everyone they know is watching.

State-regulated sportsbooks and federally regulated prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket do not allow bettors to gamble on the LLWS (though Polymarket did offer LLWS bets in 2024). But offshore sportsbooks like BetOnline Sports & Casino don’t have to adhere to U.S. laws, so they can offer the opportunity to gamble on children.

“We offer Little League World Series odds because there’s a massive demand for it,” BetOnline Brand Manager Dave Mason said in a press release, which added that bettors gambled twice as much money in 2025 as they did in 2024. “Our customers request these odds every year, and we’ll take more bets on the LLBWS over the next two weeks than on established markets such as the WNBA, Major League Soccer, pro tennis or golf.”

Mason claimed in a post on X that more users are wagering on a Little League matchup between teams from South Korea and Canada than on certain Major League Baseball games.

Whether it’s technically legal or not, we should be able to agree that this is gross and anyone betting on kids should feel bad.

Last year, the LLWS put out a statement about sports betting, which it reposted on Wednesday as a reminder.

“Little League is a trusted place where children are learning the fundamentals of the games and all the important life lessons that come with having fun, celebrating teamwork, and playing with integrity, and no one should be exploiting the success and failures of children playing the game they love for their own personal gain,” the organization said.

Despite its technological progress, AI’s reputation out in the real world is getting worse. On Wednesday, Axios reported that the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent a memo to top AI companies warning that U.S. data centers are hurting the party’s chances in a key Ohio election. At the same time, Pew Research released a study that found that Americans’ unease about AI is growing — 52% said they’re “more concerned than excited” about the increased use of AI in daily life, up from 37% in 2021.

A recent CNBC poll of 18- to 34-year-olds found that, when given the names of nine top leaders in the AI industry, a majority of the respondents said they don’t trust those people to “act responsibly” when it comes to AI. A May Economist/YouGov poll found that over 70% of Americans think AI is advancing too quickly. The list goes on.

All that discontent is starting to show up on balance sheets. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that tech companies are facing a public relations crisis over their plans to build AI data centers across the U.S., leading them to agree to sweeten the deals — offering job guarantees, clean water investments, and other local perks. (In one case, that even included $50,000 bonuses for teachers in a Louisiana parish.)

The underlying sentiment spanning these stories is that consumers don’t see how AI is making their lives better, but they’re still being asked to absorb the costs. For an industry that has raised hundreds of billions of dollars on the promise of AI’s inevitability, that souring public sentiment is becoming a business problem, not just a PR debacle, and the industry’s own leaders are starting to notice.

Today, many consumers think of AI in narrower terms, like AI chatbots or AI search experiences (like the now AI-transformed Google). They see AI features infiltrating their everyday products, from email to TVs, whether they wanted them or not. They view AI as a tool that’s helping kids cheat in school, including at the college level, raising questions about the value of a degree. They hear of AI bots training on piles of intellectual property belonging to others so AI can be used to create art, videos, music, and writing — things that have historically been the output of humans.

It’s no shock then that AI appears to be facing more consumer backlash than other transformative technologies did, like the iPhone, the personal computer, or even the internet itself, at similar stages of adoption.

Yet there are still those surprised by consumers’ reaction. They assumed AI’s adoption would lead to acceptance, and its ubiquity would ultimately have consumers feeling positively about the technology, as it became a part of the vast majority of tech products and services.

Instead, consumer trends are pointing in the opposite direction. Young people, in particular, are showing interest in adopting retro technology, ranging from dumbphones to point-and-shoot cameras to tape decks and CD players. AI-free, algorithm-free classic iPods are selling for top dollar on eBay. So-called “grandma hobbies” like quilting, knitting, jigsaw puzzles, cards, and games like Mahjong are suddenly everywhere. In-person meetups and activities, like run clubs, are winning out over online dating.

Some in Silicon Valley may think this stems from a messaging problem: that perhaps execs need to explain AI better to consumers, so people can fully understand its benefits.

The reality, however, could be that consumers understand AI well enough as it is, but don’t think the trade-offs are worth it. When the upside offered isn’t automated jobs with increased pay and reduced workweeks, but instead the threat of job loss, paired with AI features consumers find far less compelling — things like summarized web pages, or chatty TVs — that skepticism hardens.

There are those in the industry waking up to this.

On a recent podcast, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky acknowledged that the AI backlash is real, and that it’s largely tied to the fact that the industry isn’t shipping products that “regular people” like.

“I think part of it’s a narrative issue that we’re not talking about AI correctly,” Chesky said. “But part of it is we need to actually be developing more products that just regular people can use and say, ‘I love AI because AI allows me to have a doctor on demand and I can’t have that. I can’t afford that.’ And so I think we need more regular things.”

Even Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, one of the industry’s most prominent leaders, admitted in a post on X this week that negative public perception of AI is a “big problem” that’s fundamentally a “crisis of trust.” He said people don’t trust companies, governments, or the tech industry, as they “suspect that we are cooking up some new way to screw them over.”

The solution, he said, was to deliver on AI’s promises — for example, curing cancer.

“I think by far the most accurate criticism of AI companies, including Anthropic, is that we haven’t yet delivered on our big promises to benefit the world. That is totally on us,” he noted.

Google on Wednesday announced a slew of new study tools across Search and Gemini, including AI-generated interactive visuals, 3D simulations, a decided student hub, customized practice quizzes, and more.

The launch of the new study features marks Google’s latest effort to make Gemini the AI assistant that students turn to when learning and studying, as it competes with companies like OpenAI and education startups such as Knowt and Gauth, which are also offering their own learning and practice tools.

On Search, students can now generate custom tools and simulations to help them understand complex topics. For example, if a student is learning about pH levels, they can search for “pH scale” and get an interactive visual in an AI Overview that makes the basics easier to understand.

To go even further, they can ask a follow-up question for something more specialized, like plotting citrus fruits on the pH scale, and AI Mode in Search will then create an interactive experience tailored to the question.

Users can now get customized practice quizzes directly in Search on any subject, including science, math, humanities, foreign languages, and more. For example, users can enter a prompt like, “Create a quiz with the most commonly tested vocabulary words to help me prep for the SAT,” and Search will then generate an interactive quiz.

In the coming weeks, Lens in Search will roll out a new interactive learning experience that will help students work through problems. They can tap the “Lens” camera icon in the Google app and then upload a photo of what they’re working on to get AI to explain the concept, identify potential mistakes, and provide guidance if they’re stuck.

Additionally, students can now ask Search to create study documents based on their uploaded files, including PDFs, docs, slides and more. For example, they can upload a photo of their handwritten notes along with lecture slides to get a one-pager that outlines key concepts.

As for the new Gemini features, Google is launching a feature that lets students launch multi-step research reports in Gemini Live and then discuss the findings conversationally.

Users can ask Gemini to research a topic and then close the chat or do other things while it works in the background. They’ll get a notification when the report is ready and can then can discuss the findings or ask follow up questions using their voice.

The tech giant also announced that Gemini can now generate functional 3D simulations to help users better understand topics, as responses will now include tables, grids, and simulations made specially for the prompt. For example, if you enter a prompt like, “show me how DNA works in 3D,” you’ll be able to interactively rotate and zoom into a 3D DNA structure.

Google is also launching a dedicated hub in the Gemini app that brings its learning tools together in one place. Users will be able to start a study notebook, create flashcards, take practice quizzes, and more within the hub.