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The tech industry’s standing in the eyes of the US public has undergone a dramatic transformation over the last few years. Where Americans were once excited for new tech products and industry ideas, they’re now exhausted by the sector’s intrusions into their lives, whether with AI-generated slop or the data centers that power it.
Pretty much everyone has received that message loud and clear: political strategists are issuing frenzied memos about the data center backlash, while tech financiers are now forced to consider the financial cost of AI hatred.
At this point, there’s just one group that hasn’t caught on, and it’s the one holding all the cards: AI executives.
As Wired observed, top tech CEOs are increasingly trying to out-message their way around the AI backlash. To the AI billionaires, the issue isn’t that AI is making everybody’s life worse for the benefit of a few ultra-powerful corporations, or even that data centers are unsightly structures that are nearly impossible to live next to. Rather, it’s an issue of “trust,” an entirely subjective concept that can be easily overcome with a little razzle-dazzle.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, for example, has made it a point to spew even more buzzy tech-optimism into the world, issuing a tedious 6,500-word essay extolling AI’s possibilities, and lambasting anyone who criticizes the industry’s positive vision.
“It is surprising that the discourse from many developing AI is so filled with doom,” Zuckerberg wrote, a likely jab at Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. “The abundance of the future can be shared by everyone.”
Despite claiming that AI will “free up time for the things you enjoy, and help you accomplish more than you could otherwise,” Zuckerberg’s AI-boosterism is betrayed by his own company’s internal handling of AI. Earlier this month, it was revealed that Meta’s CTO, Andrew Bosworth, ripped into a Meta worker who asked if AI will soon let the rank-and-file take more time off.
“Go to your parents and ask them: hey, like every time I get a chance to talk to my boss, ask me if I can have more days off,” Bosworth said. “Ask your parents what they think of that as a career strategy.”
Of course, Zuckerberg isn’t alone in thinking he can easily paper over the AI backlash with a few honeyed words, or in his obvious hypocrisy.
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