These days, it’s not enough to sit and watch as AI destroys a generation of students, makes it impossible to find a new job, and generates military targets by the thousands — you gotta be grateful for it, too.
That, at least, is the attitude of the tech elites who’ve spent years pushing AI on the masses, only to find the public is in no such mood. As the New York Times observed over the weekend, the particular characteristics of what some have called the “AI bubble” diverge from similar moments in economic history in one key way: practically everybody hates it.
“I can’t really remember a boom with such active hostility to it,” William Quinn, co-author of the 2020 history tome “Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles,” told the NYT. “People usually find new technology exciting. It happened with electricity, bicycles, motorcars. There were fears but also hopes. AI is notable, perhaps unique, for the lack of enthusiasm.”
As consumer sentiment goes from sour to moldy, the CEOs behind the bubble only seem to be doubling down.
“It’s extremely hurtful, frankly,” said Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang in a January interview about the “battle of [AI] narratives.”
Huang insisted that AI is suffering a “lot of damage” from “very well-respected people who have painted a doomer narrative, end-of-the-world narrative, science fiction narrative.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has concurred, lamenting pushback against the “diffusion, the absorption” of AI in broader society. “Looking at what’s possible, it does feel sort of surprisingly slow,” he said at the recent Cisco AI Summit.
While AI boosters could argue we’re simply living under the tyranny of a vocal, AI-hating minority, evidence suggests the public’s aversion runs deep — and not just against the tech itself. As one Pew Research survey from 2025 found, about 60 percent of respondents said they’d like “more control” over how AI is used in their lives, while only 17 percent are “comfortable” with AI remaining in the hands of a few tech billionaires.
Consumer data paints an even more dramatic story. In mid-2025, when mainstream analyst firms were still parroting uncritical AI hype before investor sentiment turned cold in December, the number of US AI users who regularly paid for the privilege stood at a whopping 3 percent.
If even those who do actively use AI aren’t even willing to pay for it, maybe the real issue isn’t John Q Public’s attitude, but the tech itself.
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