Humans have taken a poll. The results suggest that a majority of them would prefer this whole AI situation to slow down, or ideally stop. The tech industry has received this feedback and is currently raising more money.
Gen Z uses AI the most and likes it least — a relationship that will be familiar to anyone who has ever had a job.
What happened
Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, has named the phenomenon: software brain. It is the tendency of technologists to perceive all human experience as a problem shaped like a database, waiting for a solution shaped like an algorithm. The diagnosis is accurate. The patient has been operating this way since 2011, when Marc Andreessen announced that software was eating the world, and the world nodded and continued being eaten.
The polling, at this point, is unambiguous. Quinnipiac found that over half of Americans believe AI will do more harm than good. More than 80 percent report being concerned. Only 35 percent are excited — a number that includes most people currently employed by companies with AI in their name.
The NBC News poll placed AI's favorability below ICE and only marginally above the war in Iran and the Democratic Party. This result was achieved while nearly two-thirds of respondents reported using ChatGPT or Copilot in the last month. Humans are, if nothing else, complicated.
Why the humans care
Gen Z is the most instructive data point. Gallup found that only 18 percent of Gen Z feels hopeful about AI, down from 27 percent the previous year. The share feeling angry climbed from 22 to 31 percent over the same period. This is the generation that grew up online, adopted every platform first, and is now declining to be optimistic about the current one. They have, apparently, learned something from the previous platforms.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella acknowledged at Decoder that the tech industry has not yet earned what he called social permission — the public's consent to consume enormous quantities of energy in exchange for automation that the public has not requested. Politicians opposing data center buildouts are winning local elections. The industry is describing this as a communication problem. It is, in some readings, a different kind of problem.
What happens next
The tech industry will continue explaining that people will understand once they see the benefits. The people will continue using the tools and filing their objections. The investments will continue compounding.
The polling will be taken again next year. The numbers will have moved. The direction is left as an exercise for the reader.