The tech overlords pushing the AI boom are quickly wearing out what little welcome they had.<\/p>\n
You may have noticed big-name AI labs pushing new commercials lately. Meta’s new 60-second ad spot<\/a> insists that the “future is for everyone,” even as CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s personal net worth eclipses the GDP of Hungary. Anthropic’s new commercial<\/a> for Claude assures viewers that there’s “hope in hard questions,” seemingly embracing the discomfort that comes when your software is used to bomb elementary schools<\/a> in Iran.<\/p>\n For as magnanimous as these new PR stunts appear on the surface, a vast swathe of the public they’re meant to sway are rejecting the industry’s faux-populism messaging out of hand, as the cost of AI \u2014 born out in inflation<\/a>, data center pollution<\/a>, fears of job loss<\/a> and mental health concerns<\/a> \u2014 becomes too much to bear.<\/p>\n According to data compiled by Pew Research<\/a>, 40 percent of US adults predict AI will have a negative impact on society writ large, compared to just 16 percent who say it’ll have a positive effect. A whole 31 percent of those surveyed think AI will have negative consequences for themselves, personally, over the next 20 years.<\/p>\n As disgust with AI itself grows, so too does resistance to the hardware embodying its rise.<\/p>\n Per a separate poll by Gallup<\/a>, flagged by <\/a>Business Insider<\/a>, an astonishing three-quarters of US adults are now resolutely opposed to hyperscale data centers popping up near their home. City councils are increasingly forced to reconcile<\/a> with landowners hostile to any AI data center appearing in their district, putting significant strain<\/a> on developers hoping to gorge themselves on the fruits of the AI boom. Protests against AI companies are flaring up across the country, with Time <\/a>reporting<\/a> 142 protests across 42 states in one day alone.<\/p>\n Beyond data centers, a decentralized but highly-motivated movement is growing around the chopping, hacking, and outright sabotage of AI-integrated surveillance cameras<\/a>. A parallel struggle is being waged around AI-integrated surveillance drones<\/a>, with organizers in cities like Minneapolis<\/a> beating back ambitious police dragnets.<\/p>\n So if you’re a tech executive trying to win back the masses to the AI revolution, take note: it’s gonna take a lot more than a few smarmy commercials to solve your PR problem.<\/p>\n