53) AI Hate

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Introductory Remarks

Dear Vambracers —

In last week’s post, Energy & Opportunity, I (very briefly) mentioned that I’d be in NYC for tech week and that, effectively, I was too busy to write a substantive post. I hid behind the “energy and opportunity” that was abound in the city, and made it seem like I’d be deeply immersed in and contributing to that energy and opportunity. In the end, I attended a few events and made some good connections—but nothing earth-shattering. And sometimes that’s just how the cookie crumbles! Moving on.

AI Hate

Today, I want to explore the intense hatred that the general public seems to have for all things AI. As an avid AI practitioner, I feel it strongly in my own life. I get nervous when I tell people what I do, I can feel some judgement in my day-to-day life, and I think there’s broad skepticism and an even broader sense of negativity associated with AI, and by therefore with anyone promoting the dissemination of AI. So let’s try to understand why!

• Economic uncertainty: There were many headlines for several months about massive job losses and layoffs coming from AI. I remember Dario Amodei went on CNBC or something maybe 6ish months ago and said that 50% of white collar jobs were going to be displaced, a statement that was met with intense fear and consternation. With the looming threat of job losses and obsoletion, people are (justifiably) scared.

• Environmental concerns: AI uses a lot of energy, and realistically generation capacity is going to be the primary gating factor in the distribution of AI. People don’t want a technology that they already fear to also contribute to the deterioration of the environment, which is also fair. I also think these concerns color the latest protests and citizenry pushback that we’ve seen to the construction of data centers across the country. Again, this is fair.

• Social concerns: I think there are also broad, generalized, and amorphous concerns that AI will somehow undermine the social fabric of our civilizations. Specifically this might apply to “AI girlfriends” and dating more generally, as well as AI therapists, and AI doctors, and other “trusted service provider-y” use cases. I think there’s something fundamentally dehumanizing about being tended to about human concerns by a non-human entity.

• Broad disruption and disorientation: I don’t think anybody can confidently say what the technology will look like 6, 12, 24 months from now, and I think that’s really scary. Things that we took for granted over the past decade (if not many decades) as part of our social contract are coming under threat. CS degrees don’t guarantee you a job. Sophisticated LLMs may replace highly-paid lawyers. Meanwhile, the political environment feels more unstable than ever. We can’t maintain and discuss civil disagreements. Everything is being fed to us in 3-second clips, and we can’t seem to get enough of them! War is breaking out (and it’s a lot of robot combat). We’re (allegedly) closer than ever to a species-level extinction event.

These are all legitimate reasons to be fearful! And the purpose of this post isn’t to respond to these concerns or to try to assuage fears. I just wanted to try to be open and honest about the negative dynamics associated with AI that contribute to broad popular dislike and skepticism.

I think AI has a brand and marketing problem that will take time and require real success stories to move the needle in a more favorable direction. And I also think it’d be unwise for prominent AI figures to dismiss or minimize these fears. We’re all just trying our best to figure it out as we go.

Looking Forward

No real takeaways today, just wanted to give a fair handshake to something that I’ve been feeling lately. I think a lot of the fear around AI is completely rational, and as an industry we have to acknowledge the bad—even if we believe that the good will far outweigh it.

Have a great week!

Sincerely,

Luke