Gen Z turning its back on AI isn’t irrational — it’s a verdict on everyone who failed them

America has a problem with young people and AI. Gen Z has looked clearly at what the AI revolution is doing to their lives and rendered a verdict: the institutions that were supposed to prepare them for this moment have failed, the employers that were supposed to hire them have vanished, and the government that was supposed to manage the transition has been absent without leave.

That verdict is arriving in numbers that are hard to dismiss: The more young people engage with the technology, the worse they feel about it.