Obviously the world of politics has been colonized by the debates about AI because the leading AI companies have C-suites that have shifted from telling us we’re all going to be unemployed to the more alarming, but also ordinary, fact that we’re all going to die.
But the AI panic is just one skiff sailing atop a roiling sea of discontent. According to the New York Times, 80 percent of young respondents said they opposed the building of data centers. Many generally distrust AI.
There’s been a lot of back-and-forth about what these numbers really mean. Opposition to data centers really does seem to be about the data centers themselves. The Times found the most commonly cited reason was environmental concerns. But adoption of AI and its use is going up.
My own view of this is that there is a larger revolt happening. We see it in the movement among schools to ban smartphones and in the reduction of screen-mediated learning in schools.
But my read is this revolt is confused itself about what precisely it objects to about AI or Big Tech. People cite environmental concerns because that sounds good and right, and who knows, they may think it is technically true.