Is the AI Backlash Overhyped or Justified?
Hosts Stephen Horn, Autria Godfrey and Laila Rizvi debate whether the public is turning against AI, or against the companies deploying it. They discuss the Academy's Oscar rules on AI, the industrial revolution and the Luddites, Gen Z workers, trust in AI in the US and China, and AI in the 2028 presidential race. The discussion includes clips from earlier interviews with Emily Bender on entry level jobs and Jimmy Wales on why language models depend on human knowledge.
Transcript
AI was supposed to make us better: faster searches, more productivity, wider knowledge, but it hasn't, and public sentiment is starting to shift. People are inundated with fake images and voices, AI-generated slop, unreliable answers, phony influencers, and a growing wave of content that looks real, but it may not be. At the same time, young people just entering the job market are asking whether AI will not only just take their jobs, but alter their ability to have a career altogether.
So today we are asking the question, is AI contributing to the ever-growing crisis of distrust and misinformation? As the tide turns on AI, could public backlash against Big Tech be reaching a breaking point?
First though today, we want to talk about what we think. And so Stephen, I would love to hear from a CEO's perspective, your thoughts on if you feel that there is a real backlash against AI, or is that just something we're hearing within kind of an echo chamber of the loudest voices in the room?
So what I think is that we are currently seeing an AI revolution going on. I would say an agentic AI revolution, which is completely changing the way that we do business, and completely changing not just the way that we do business, but the whole structure of what a company looks like. And I think if you combine that with the narrative about AI that you were talking about, right, the distrust of AI, fake AI slop, but you also get AI inequality in some countries, some companies are going to be richer, the effect of others, and then people losing their jobs, right? You wake up every morning, you know, thousands of people losing their job here and there. So it's no surprise to me, because also, there's nobody really doing anything about this. You know, you were saying, is it the backlash against the technology companies? But, you know, we've talked about this before, you cannot leave this to the technology companies.
No, not at all. And in fact, one of the things that really caught my attention here in the United States was the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences banned AI-generated actors and AI-generated scripts from being in contention to win an Oscar. So it's taking these outside entities to say, we actually don't want any part of that so that we can keep our actors and our screenwriters and our production companies employed.
But I also find that a bit absurd, because again-
Why?
Well, no, because it's a tool. As in, did they ban CGI? Did they ban Photoshop? Did they ban computers?
No, but those are all pieces of technology that humans use, so they're not replacing.
But the fact that it's, again, it's a narrative of replacement, and replacement in the form of taking capital away from workers and giving it to the AI companies. Now if you think about it in terms of augmentation, if we started to say, oh yeah, AI is just augmenting films, augmenting workers, augmenting businesses, even though it technically is replacing them, the attitudes would be very different. So the computer and the iPhone changed everything. People don't have jobs which they had back then, and they did result in replacement. But the discourse around it wasn't that you're going to lose your job, this is going to take over the entire world, it's really going to suck. It was very much like, this is a fun little thing.
Right. So the last time we saw this, arguably, I would say, I just don't think we're catching up to this, right? I mean, and this is my main point, right? Now I think a lot of people we talk about are sort of AI is not going to work, large language models are rubbish, it's just a word bingo, all that kind of stuff. I think we're not catching up. I think the last time we saw a revolution like this, an economic revolution like this, was in the 1780s, right? The first industrial revolution. And it took government, it took society in those days, 100 years to catch up. It took 100 years before we had schools, before we had the laws, before we had the, you know, the sort of infrastructure for workers. And I feel we're in the same issue because, you know, I don't see government stepping in here. I don't see anybody who's understanding the change that we're seeing. And the change that we're seeing, I think, is quite startling. And until we recognize that, I don't see us so...
But when you look back to the industrial revolution, yes, there was a gap between the implementation of all of these, you know, factories. But then there was a period where we upskilled workers so that they were able to have these new jobs.
I mean, most of the people weaving lost their jobs.
We downskilled workers. We had machines and we had people operating machines.
Right! They had to be trained up on how to do that.
But they were seven years old.
Only in some parts of the country or some parts in the world.
They were seven years old.
Only in some parts-
Yeah, but the seven year olds have ChatGPT subscriptions, is what I say.
One of the things we talk about, right, is trust. You know, we talk a lot about trust and we're going to get onto that in this discussion. Let me give you a little example of the first industrial revolution. A factory in Yorkshire in a little town called Burley. And to this day you go to that factory, and it has the road leading up to the factory. It's called Iron Row. And it's called Iron Row, not because the road was made of iron, but because they put big iron gates on that road. So the Luddites couldn't go and smash the machines.
That's happening with data centers. People are just like wanting to set them alight, burn them down.
And we have to deal with that trust issue. And we deal with that trust issue through education. And we're just missing that piece out.
Well, I, for what I'm glad that Hollywood has intervened. I do not want to watch a movie that is strictly all AI generated. You can. They have like 25 fingers on their hands. You can tell.
You won't in a year.
All right. But actually the whole conversation about AI, you know, not enhancing the workplace, but essentially replacing workers is something that came up when we sat down and spoke with Emily Bender. It's not just about people having to sift through what may or may not be fake, but it's about them being really concerned that AI is actually going to take over their job. So take a listen to what Emily Bender had to say about this very topic.
There's a lot to say here, many directions to go. But it is true that many people who are at the start of their careers are exploited, that they are used to perform labor and not being paid very much for it. It is also true that many companies believe that that same labor could be done through automation. But what's the point of an internship, right? It's not just to have a vulnerable person to exploit, I hope, right? Interns and junior staff are at the start of their careers and they are gaining the experience that would allow them to grow in their careers. And anytime someone says, oh, we don't need that layer anymore because the senior folks can now just look at the output of the automated systems, well, where do you suppose the next senior folks are coming from?
So to kind of piggyback on her thoughts, in a new workplace intelligence report, 44% of Gen Z employees said that they have intentionally sabotaged their company's AI strategy because they did not want that form of technology to take their job. They're very concerned about this. So Emily, she is onto something.
But is that in the Western world?
It's in the United States.
Yes, in the United States because the trust in China, according to one of the Stanford reports, is like 84% in...
In China.
Yeah.
Whereas in the US it's 34%.
Yeah, there is a reluctancy.
Yeah, I just think it is a really big narrative problem where it's very much like about this idea of replacement. And then...
Has Silicon Valley then not done a good enough job of selling... You talked a lot about like Steve Jobs and Apple. And when Apple was... When they rolled out the MacBook and they rolled out the iPhone and all that stuff, it was, this is going to enhance your life. It's going to make your life so much better. Not that it's going to take away your livelihood.
All I see from Silicon Valley is you don't want to be part of the permanent underclass, get on the train now, otherwise, you're going to be in the permanent underclass. And that's literally the narrative. And so you're like, oh, oh no. Okay, I don't want to be with them. I don't want to be with the people who are going to be left behind.
I think that perhaps the message that should be coming out of Silicon Valley and these AI companies is we've got this incredible new technology, embrace it or you will get left behind. Train up on it so that you can utilize it to enhance your job, not replace yourself.
Right. But again, you know, it's just kind of missing the point, right? Which is that it's about how companies are going to be structured. It's about how the whole world is going to be structured using AI. It's not what comes out of Silicon Valley. It's how those tools and that research actually gets implemented in, let's call it the real world. Companies all around the world, nowhere near Silicon Valley. And that's the difference now. You can see where companies that are kind of organizing themselves around AI are succeeding. Companies who are integrating AI are not succeeding. And it's about that reorganization. So when Emily says, okay, where are the senior professionals? Well, I've got news for her. They may not be senior professionals.
Yeah.
So it's not a question where the juniors come from to make them senior. They may not be senior.
So the C-suite is going to be wiped out as well? You think? That's what I'm asking. So you may be finding yourself... No, but I'm being.
There's a beach somewhere with my name.
Yes, I'm being serious though. So you think that this is not really just a problem that is specific to those entry-level positions?
I think calling it a problem is just not helpful.
Tell that to a 22-year-old.
I think we're going to see fundamental restructuring of what the workplace is.
But that's why a 22-year-old is so upset. Because the value extracted from AI as a tool is totally immaterial relative to the societal kind of upheaval that they're expecting. So it's not just like a tech thing. It's like a political thing. And it's associated with a political movement of elites that are trying to change their entire understanding of the world.
I am so glad you brought politics into this. Because our good friend Gary Marcus, whom we love here on "Agents of Tech," he has predicted that the anti-AI sentiment will be a huge factor in the 2028 presidential race here in the United States.
It's, yeah, it's bolted onto everything. Everything is-
Right, but it's going to be-
AI pro or-
The people running for president in 2028 are going to be-
AI?
Are going to be, one, possibly. But two, they're going to be campaigning on the promise of, I won't let AI take your job. Like jobs in the economy. It's always the economy, stupid. Everything goes back to the economy, right? To your point, this is going to be a huge, a huge issue that is not going anywhere.
But it's not going to be an issue, is it? I mean, this is like, King Canute, isn't it?
I can't wait for the 2028 campaign ads that are all about this.
It's not going to be... You know, it's like there is... You know, you're talking in such a way like it's possible that somebody can say, no, let's stop this right here. That's just not going to happen, right? I mean, the reason people are concerned about things is they've paid tuition fees. They've got to earn a living. And where's the money going to come from? And they're used to a certain way of work, a certain way of rewarding work. And that way of rewarding work is going to change. And we're not talking about what replaces it. All we're doing is kind of say, oh, my gosh.
Okay, so then from a CEO perspective, what is a 22-year-old fresh out of college with those tuition bills and with those student loans supposed to do?
Business is all about adding value, right? And that doesn't change. It's about how you add value and how you become part of that value structure. That's the key thing that everybody, whether you're 22 or 122, you have to understand, which is how do you add value? How are you a part of that value creation? And that's what we're looking at. And that's what we're not answering. What we're doing is we're taking old models and we're saying, oh, my gosh, the old models are in trouble with AI. Oh, my gosh, let's replace them. Let's, you know. But the rest of the world is not Hollywood. We don't have scriptwriters associations, you know, and that change is what we've got to not just talk about. Well, you've got to embrace that change for the good of everybody and not just, dare I say it, the CEOs.
But would your suggestion then be to maybe some of these people coming out that are trying to seek out these entry level jobs, you better figure out a way to-
Start using Claude Code.
There you go. There it is.
Right. But I don't even think it's 22 year olds. I think it's society in general has to be having these conversations, you know, because we won't need, you know, arguably we won't need as many people working.
Jimmy Wales disagrees with you entirely. In fact, he said almost as much-
I love Jimmy.
We do. He's a good friend to "Agents of Tech." And when he joined us here, he talked specifically about how AI has become as successful as it has been and what role humans played in that. Take a listen.
One of the things we have to understand is that the only reason the large language models are any good at all is because they've read Wikipedia. You know, like I don't think... Imagine a large language model that was trained only on Twitter or X, you know, I think it would be very angry model and very confused about the world. And so that human curation of knowledge. And of course, I would say because they've read Wikipedia, but also, by the way, they've read all the academic journals. They've read major books and all of this. All of that good quality human knowledge is really necessary to build a model that is echoing that knowledge and is sort of producing it in a new kind of way. Without that, they would be completely lost.
So Jimmy says without humans, AI would be completely lost. I feel like you might disagree with that. Both of you, actually.
I mean, we did need to build what came before in the form of the Internet, yes. And also LLMs didn't emerge from like spontaneously from thin airs. And it did require intelligent human beings to come up with the theory, build the thing, train the thing. So, yes, I actually do agree with Jimmy in that respect. But I don't think that's why the LLMs are as intelligent as they are because they read Wikipedia. It's because someone built some really intelligent architecture and then scraped the Internet with it. What say you?
I mean, I think, you know, it's a lot to agree with Jimmy, isn't there? You know, and he makes a lot of, you know, intelligent points. And as Laila said, the large language models had to be kind of like trained. And there's no doubt as well that there is a, you know, there's a balance here. You know, you read The Economist, the quality of journalism. You know, it adds up to a richer impact, you have art, you have culture, none of which is being replaced anytime soon by large language models. But we talked about this with Jimmy, though, didn't we? Which is, okay, but where's the economic model for this better world?
Well, we want to know what you think. Is AI still mainly a productivity tool ready to revolutionize the world for the better? Or is it only creating a crisis of distrust and leading to that wave of anti-AI backlash? Tell us in the comments, like and subscribe.
So I guess after our entire conversation today, do you think that the AI backlash is being a little bit overhyped? Do you think that it's warranted? Final thoughts?
I think it's a real problem. As in, I think these tech companies, I think the whole technology has a real media communication problem. And people really do hate it. People think it's like ruining the climate. It's ruining people's lives. It's just super, super negative. But I don't agree necessarily with that consensus. I think more work needs to be done to actually show people the benefits and also ensure that those benefits happen, really.
That's the thing. I think that there have been some promises about AI, and we haven't actually seen those come to fruition. So maybe once we see the whole AI for good thing, people will be a little bit more willing to embrace.
What AI for good thing?
Well, we keep hearing about it's going to help with climate change.
So how's that going to happen?
I'm not the one building the machines.
Ads in ChatGPT.
Yeah. I'm waiting for it to happen as well. But I do think that people are rejecting. Look at what happened with Sora, for example. How quickly that hit its heyday and then almost was immediately shut down just because people were like, I don't want to see this AI slop. So I think that people are rejecting. I don't want to see something that what you're giving to me I know is fake.
I think this is a societal issue. I think society has to grab hold of this. And however you define society, whether it's government or all of us, society has to grab hold of this because the fundamental change is going to be wreaked on all of us. And we as a society have to understand how we want to regulate it, how we want the world to look. Because if we don't do that, it'll have no effect.
I also think just it being driven by the capital markets, they have to ultimately sell their product. So a lot of the time they just instill fear in people. As in that is the best way to do it rather than actually communicating the value.
Right. But what you're seeing at the moment is you're seeing a trillion dollars being invested into this in a year. We have never in the whole history of mankind seen a trillion dollars invested in anything. And we're seeing that trillion dollars having an immediate payback and that money is following that payback, you know, completely. And it's that payback that is going to create whatever we see and nothing else unless we get involved, unless we get involved and decide what it is that we want to see.
But it's so exclusionary. Who's including anyone in that?
That's the role of government, right? That is the role of government.
People want more government in their lives. That's for sure. All right. We asked for your thoughts earlier in this episode. Is AI still mainly a productivity tool ready to revolutionize the world for better? Or is it only creating a crisis of distrust and leading to a wave of anti-AI backlash? After this conversation, we would love to know if your initial stance still stands. Do you feel the public turning against AI or maybe just against the companies deploying it? Are we heading toward Big Tech's Big Tobacco moment? Drop your comments below. We would love to keep the conversation going with you and be sure to like and subscribe. We'll see you next time right here on "Agents of Tech."