Silicon Valley's tone-deaf take on the AI backlash will matter in 2026

If the tech industry leaders demonstrated any amount of responsibility, accountability, or care for the general well-being of people, then I think this would instead be an exciting time for tech innovation. The enthusiasm I felt decades ago is completely gone.

From the article, an OpenAI researcher apparently:

> “Every time I use Codex to solve some issue late at night or GPT helps me figure out a difficult strategic problem, I feel: what a relief. There are so few minds on Earth that are both intelligent and persistent enough to generate new insights and keep the torch of scientific civilization alive. Now you have potentially infinite minds to throw at infinite potential problems. Your computer friend that never takes the day off, never gets bored, never checks out and stops trying.”

Um, this person needs help? Serious mental issues, hello?! It's really concerning me how many people are having breaks with reality, and I don't only mean the poor people who are sadly taking their own lives.

I don't think the opposition from the public is because they don't see value in AI. Quite the opposite, every single non tech person I know has used AI tools and can immediately see the value.

The 'backlash' seems to be from the fact that people, esp white collar workers are finally realizing what blue collar folks have been feeling for quite some time. That an overwhelming majority of the technology driven productivity gains accrue to capital owners, not workers and AI is the ultimate productivity tool.

It doesn't help that capital owners no longer feel it necessary to even pretend. Like when CEOs openly salivate at the prospect of firing all workers and replacing them with AI. When people see their electricity rates go up to subsidize billionaires building AI data centers. When they see their real wages falling continually while they are told how good the economy is.

If the gains from AI were shared even a little with the regular people, they might not have the deep sense of unease and sometimes open hostility that we are seeing now.