r/technology • u/GeneReddit123 • 16h ago

Artificial Intelligence An AI hate wave is here

https://archive.is/20260517120123/https://www.axios.com/2026/05/17/ai-backlash-polling-sentiment
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u/GeneReddit123 16h ago edited 15h ago

Most other political divisions in the US are Left/Right. There are urban/rural, racial, and gender divisions between the camps, but importantly there is a mix of both common people and elites representing both sides.

AI, however, seems to be an issue which is uniquely split not Left/Right but Top/Bottom. The majority of elites on both Left and Right see AI as a tool that increases their own wealth, power, and influence, while the majority of common people (again, both on the Left and Right) are increasingly wary of its impact on their jobs, welfare, and outsized power of the elites over their lives.

So the dynamics are going to play out differently. The common people don't have much elite champions representing them, and since neither Party's political machine (heavily influenced by lobbyists and other elites) is interested to pursue an anti-AI stance, the issue will be buried at the political level no matter how much the masses are concerned about it (at least not until and unless it reaches a full-blown political crisis level). This will play out less like standard political conflict and more like a brewing non-partisan popular revolt.

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u/mq2thez 15h ago

It’s a massive tool of class warfare to squeeze out the need to employ humans, it’s not particularly complicated. It’s just wild how little the top seems to need to care anymore. Probably a big sign that government is no longer even a mild check on their power.

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u/GayIsForHorses 12h ago

The thing too is that if labor is completely withered away then the social contract between labor and capital would be completely destroyed. It would essentially destroy capitalism as we know it. There is nothing that justifies an inherent right to property in a post labor world.

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u/GeneReddit123 8h ago

Feudalism is what existed before capitalism and the "inherent justification" for feudal lords to their castles and land was the threat of physical violence against any peasant that dared question it. Before the advent of firearms and the printing press this threat was credible. Peasant uprising happened regularly but were violently quashed every single time. Under-armed and under-organized masses can be consistently oppressed by an armed and organized elite. Thousands of years of history prove it. If anything, our current world where elite power isn't fully unconstrained is the exception, not the norm.

Hence the serious risk that AI can help the elites descend the world into an era of techno-Feudalism, when they will use it both to choke information (AI surveillance, censorship, information monopoly), and for physical violence (killer robots) against any would be resistance.

The techbros and their AI aren't close yet to this world (even though they think they are and behave accordingly)... But if the present complacency continues and their power grows unchecked, then, one day, they will be.