A pattern has emerged across the 2026 commencement season in the United States. Speakers who have praised artificial intelligence from the podium have been met with boos. At the University of Arizona, the former chief executive of Google was interrupted by the graduates as he turned to the subject. At the University of Central Florida, a real estate executive who described the rise of artificial intelligence as the next industrial revolution drew the same response, audible en

On 19 May 2026, from the I/O stage in Mountain View, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, declared that the company he leads had entered its “agentic Gemini era.” The announcement was accompanied by a slate of products — Gemini Omni and Gemini 3.5, new agentic experiences in Search, an agent-first development platform called Antigravity, and Gemini Spark, a 24/7 AI agent that runs in the background on Google Cloud and continues working when the user closes their laptop. The Gemi

The Russian Revolution of 1917 is remembered as the fall of an Empire. The end of a dynasty, the violent transformation of a society, the redrawing of a sixth of the world’s land into a state operating on principles entirely opposed to the one it replaced. That is the version the histories keep, and within its terms it is accurate. But a revolution against a class is also, unavoidably, an action upon every family of that class — and the action took several forms. Most of them

The Cold War is remembered as a division of the world. Two systems, two alliances, a contest measured in warheads and proxy wars and the territory each side could hold and deny the other. That is the version the histories keep, and within its terms it is accurate. But a division of the world is also, unavoidably, a division of the families who were living across the line when it was drawn — and the line was drawn through a great many of them. For four decades the Cold War wor

Of the four worlds the Decision-Maker occupies — wealth, art, philanthropy, lineage — the last is the most recorded, and the most full of deliberate gaps. Genealogy, the reading of the lineage, is the discipline in which what is missing matters most. Mass AI and the genealogical platforms handle the surface fluently. They assemble names, dates, places. They suggest records, propose matches, extend a tree backward with apparent confidence. For a documented family, they will pr

In the art world of the Decision-Maker, alongside the figure of the New Collector, another figure has always been present: the Inheritor Collector. This figure did not arrive at the collection. They were born into it. The works were on the walls before they could read the labels, and the names — the artists, the periods, the provenance — were part of the architecture of childhood. The Inheritor Collector is not dazzled by the collection. They have lived inside it. The definin

In the art world of the Decision-Maker, a particular figure appears with increasing frequency: the New Collector. The moment this figure is most visible is the moment of consideration. A catalogue is open, perhaps a digital file is displayed on the screen. The advisor’s voice is heard in the room — present, persuasive, attentive — and the Decision-Maker is listening. They trust the advisor. They know the market, the artist, the auction history, the price trajectory, the next

The Decision-Maker lives in four worlds — wealth, art, philanthropy, lineage. Art is the most visible of them — and a collection is never a list of works. It is a personal statement, the most visible thing about its owner, and the most easily misread. Mass AI handles the surface fluently. It identifies the artists, places them within movements, locates them in market trajectories, summarises critical reception. A Decision-Maker asking what a particular work is, or what a part