Silicon Valley can’t explain why AI faces growing hostility, data show worsening trends

More than half of Americans under 30 report being more worried than excited about artificial intelligence, a 24 percent rise over the past five years according to a Pew Research Center survey released this week. Over 70 percent of respondents of all ages are convinced the technology will reduce the number of jobs, but the anxiety extends far beyond employment. Survey participants fear damage to young people’s ability to form meaningful relationships, demand that tech firms compensate creators whose data were used to train models, and point to a threat to students’ critical thinking. A separate study by the Searchlight Institute found that exposure to different AI messages barely shifted public attitudes toward the technology’s social impact, suggesting the concern runs deeper than a communications problem.

Pop-culture brands have already begun to leverage the backlash. Liquid Death and Garage Beer teamed with former Philadelphia Eagles player Jason Kelce, Taylor Swift’s brother-in-law, for a commercial urging people to urinate in bottles and ship them to AI data centers. The creative director at Liquid Death told Marketing Dive that opposition to data centers is “literally the only thing that unites all Americans right now.” Silicon Valley is still trying to decode the wave, but popular culture is already riding it without apology.

Earlier this month Mark Zuckerberg published a 6,500-word manifesto describing an optimistic future in which a personal AI assistant knows you intimately, likely drawing on all the data that Meta’s applications have collected, and helps with career, hobbies and even child-rearing. The product does not exist yet, but the core argument is that open access to powerful models is the best scenario. The problem, according to current polls, is that the industry has not yet earned the trust required for people to adopt such a theoretical product.

The dispute between Zuckerberg and Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, highlights the panic. Zuckerberg indirectly jabbed Amodei, writing that he is surprised the “discourse of many AI developers is full of apocalyptic predictions.” Investor Gavin Baker, appearing on the All-In podcast, followed up by claiming that Amodei’s messages “helped a lot in efforts to ban the establishment of data centers in America.” AI adviser David Sacks, also on the podcast, added that Anthropic’s narratives “did more than anything else to shape public fear.” Amodei responded with a lengthy post, rejecting the accusation that his messaging caused the backlash.