We're Missing a Key Reason Why Americans Hate AI

christina97

Strawman. It’s very obvious that people are frustrated by the combination of no perceived benefit with all kinds of perceived risks and downsides.

yawnxyz

cost of living is bc of high price of energy

JSR_FDED

I don’t buy the argument. The article claims Americans hate AI because they were promised “lots of cheap stuff” and it hasn’t arrived. I’ve just never heard this “promise” repeated by any normies. The only thing I hear over and over is “AI will help create medicines to solve all diseases” (or something to that effect). Even then, I don’t get the sense that anyone is expecting that in the short term. Isn’t the threat of job destruction a much more likely explanation?

bpodgursky

I'm not convinced Americans really have strong feelings about AI, relative to other issues. The data center pushback seems to be mostly literally about stopping data center construction in their counties. If you build them in Argentina or Norway, they'll stop paying attention. I think the will be negative if you push an answer out of them, but it's not something Americans are going out to protest and rallying around. There are a LOT of issues people are passively 60% negative on but it doesn't influence their votes.

jwilber

“Everything costs money, but it shouldn’t with AI.” … “Below, for paying subscribers, I’ll explain…” Not sure how this got to the front page (I have some uncharitable ideas), but I suppose low-to-mid quality writing/copy is the one thing that ai has sent to zero, so that’s convenient now!

exogeny

This isn't rocket science. People are worried about their jobs, while the top 1% is getting richer and richer and richer.

andrewla

I disagree with the premise. The cited survey says: Thinking now about AI (A-I), that is artificial intelligence … Q28 In general, would you say… (ROTATE) + The benefits outweigh the risks of AI ............. 34 The risks outweigh the benefits of AI ............. 57 A little of both (VOL)............................. 2 Not sure .......................................... 7 + Results shown reflect responses among registered voter That's all well and good, but the question is very broad. I think when pushed, the reason people hate AI is that a lot of "AI" solutions have been rolled out before the technology was mature. Even now, for end-user facing things most applications are pretty bad, even as the models have gotten more powerful. You're increasingly pushed to use AI by every online service, and every interaction with retail pushes AI in your face, and importantly, ALL OF THEM ARE JUST TERRIBLE. Amazon has their shopping assistant which is, astonishingly, WORSE than their regular search, which is a hell of a bar. But people who use ChatGPT or Claude to answer questions on their own are thrilled with the technology. They'll occasionally laugh at the R's in strawberry, or try to torture the AI (this might be more of a teenager thing) but it is remarkable how well-liked it is, as opposed to Google's search-integrated AI for example.

austinthetaco

Yeah this feels totally false. I think most hate it because there is already a lot of upset over financial imbalance, particularly that the gap between average worker and ceo has grown exponentially. It just feels to most a way for a few company ceo's to gain even more wealth while the rest of us don't financially benefit from it (and might be hurt by it by losing their jobs).

zirkonit

I don't understand why people are unhappy when SO MUCH shareholder value is being created. Since ChatGPT's initial release, the S&P 500's combined market cap has grown by about $33 trillion, roughly doubling. Before that, it took 31 years to add the same amount. Isn't that what we should all care about, making sure capital holders get more capital? As long as BlackRock's assets under management keep growing, we should be happy. Trickle-down economics will definitely trickle down eventually. (Since Hacker News is unusually tough on sarcasm, I grudgingly have to end this with /s)

kimbernator

I think that the reaction would be wildly different if there were trust that such a technology would be used to make everyone's lives better. If workers were collectively in charge of deciding how AI ought to change their working lives, I suspect most of them would have opted for reduced working hours & longer weekends over what we are currently seeing. AI could have revolutionized how many people do their work. It could have given so many people the freedom to spend their lives living, but somehow we used it to make work more intense and more taxing than it ever was before. And we all know that with each leap forward, things invariably get worse for us.

bliteben

Tech pessimism is a real problem and maybe the root problem. There really seems to be no figure in tech that sets a moral example right now. Not enough people in power calling out obvious crypto scams, not enough holding the line against gambling addictions. I mean probably the most worshipped tech-ish billionaire (trillionaire?) is a perverted man child with a chip on his shoulder that is either a troll who should never be taken seriously (yet is allowed to be CEO of a company with control over ICBMs) or an outright nazi.

happytoexplain

I think it's more likely to be the obvious and straightforward reasons that people say out loud, constantly, everywhere.