TR.BIZ: 5.26.2026
From Pope Leo's AI hate to a rise in audiobooks, this is your early-mid-week check-in ✨
Welcome to The Trend Report: Business Edition™, a midweek look at top stories, trends, and more of what’s happening online and off by Kyle of The Trend Report™. Today, we’re talking Pope Leo’s hate letter to AI, new book publishing stats, a new movie made from a meme account, and a cute Menorcan brand I love.
📲 Tech Talk, I: Pope “FUCK AI” Leo
Yesterday, Pope Leo wrote a 42,300 word encyclical (a la: an open letter to followers of the Christ, etc.) on the subject of AI and — Woo wee! — it’s amazing. While I didn’t read the whole thing (I’m on vacation this week!), he dropped bangers like “humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together” and “the pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs” and ”artificial Intelligence now demands to be disarmed, freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion and death.” While this manifesto was presented alongside Anthropic — the more cautious and progressive AI tech company behind Claude and former war tool of the Pentagon — such a statement by the head of the Catholic church on AI is deeply ironic, less because this is a statement by a religious leader but because, for years — and especially this year — the Catholic church, right wing politics, tech, and men have been in a deep flirtation. Evil billionaires like Peter Thiel and shady politicians like vice president JD Vance are believers, trending stories about young men becoming Catholic continue to trend, far right Catholic efforts like Opus Dei are messing with the church, all as both men and right wingers are more likely to be lovers of AI: Pope Leo’s stance is very much an indictment of the current state of things, in his speaking up for the little people and the vulnerable — and against this current wave of hard and soft imperialism that are kneecapping our collective future in the name of short-term greedy gain. Pope Leo even quoted Tolkien in his take down, which is a very pointed subtweet at Peter Thiel, a person who has called this Pope the antichrist. This is all truly wild, signalling yet again the power of the Catholic church on wider culture and its influence on politics. The question is: will anyone listen? Are we in a post-church time? This is a stress test on if people still believe in religious figures or if they’ve abandoned their principles for reality stars. Either way: this is a great time to be culturally Catholic.
📲 Tech Talk, II: Erin Brockovich is coming for AI
Speaking of AI warriors! Here’s something surprising but not, which I haven’t heard anyone talk about: after spotting a brief Twitter mention, consumer advocate and environmental activist Erin Brockovich — known for her work combatting a toxic water problem in California, which was catapulted to fame thanks to a Julia Roberts film — has put AI data centers in her sights. The initiative, called the Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting, has created a robust map of data centers in the United States along with the key areas of concern associated with them. “The RACE to build AI infrastructures is unfolding town by town across America,” she says in a brief note of the initiative. “I am watching as YOU, the communities show up and speak out. In the famous words of Mark Twain…’The secret of getting ahead is getting started.’” Will this help to reshape the conversation around the impact of this tech? I don’t think so, but it certainly represents how — yet again — AI is becoming an intersectional issue that is galvanizing more and more people across the spectrum of identity and interests, making this truly a we-versus-me David and Goliath story. Let’s start slinging them stones!
😋 Eat Me: This is why kids are such picky eaters now
One book I am dying to read is historian Helen Zoe Veit’s Picky, about how American children became such fussy eaters, where she explores why and how kids stopped eating both diverse foods but dumbed-down kid shit. Infantilization as the thief of a little person of interest! But why is this happening? You know why: it’s the parents. Veit explains of this trend, for Salon —
