People really hate AI, so why can’t they get enough?

Public sentiment about artificial intelligence is souring even as use of the technology climbs, according to surveys cited in MIT Technology Review. Pew Research Center data shows more US adults expect AI to have a negative impact on them personally and on society than a positive one, with pessimism strongest among young people. A Stanford University report found more than half of people worldwide say AI products and services make them nervous.

Opposition to infrastructure is also pronounced. In a May Gallup poll, 71% of US adults said they would oppose construction of a new AI data center in their area, compared with 53% who said they would oppose a new nuclear power plant. An NBC poll in March found AI less popular than ICE.

Adoption nonetheless keeps growing. ChatGPT reached a billion monthly users in May, according to market analysis firm Sensor Tower, and Google DeepMind's Gemini logged 950 million users in July. Pew reports half of US adults now say they use a chatbot, more than twice the 2023 figure, and one in four use one daily. More than a third of adults across all 38 OECD countries report using generative AI tools in the last three months.

The author writes that these numbers suggest overlapping rather than distinct groups, and that negative views correlate with higher adoption: the Global North skews pessimistic while the Global South is more optimistic. The author's stated view is that dislike is directed less at the technology than at companies' drive to push it into as many areas as possible.

The article compares the dynamic to social media's last 20 years, when billions used Facebook, Twitter and Google search despite techlash, but notes switching costs were high. It points to greater political appetite for regulation now, with all 50 US states having passed or proposed AI laws, producing more than 2,100 bills, a tenfold increase in three years, and to open-source alternatives to Google, OpenAI and Anthropic as potential sources of consumer choice and market pressure.

The Springboards CEO told the author there was no walking back from large language models but that you could still make them do something different. The author calls for clarity about what AI can and cannot do.