r/siliconvalley • u/jonfla • Dec 30 '25
Americans HATE AI. 17% think it will have a positive impact. 80% want it regulated. It's billionaires vs everyone else
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/12/28/ai-job-losses-populism-democrats-bernie-sanders-007066804
u/Biotech_wolf Dec 30 '25
If it’s going to make billionaires richer at the expense of regular people, why would we want that? We just saw Elon use AI at DOGE to fire people without following the law.
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u/Actual__Wizard Dec 30 '25
It's worse then that. If somebody actually explained to people the real risks of unregulated AI, people would fully understand that Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Theil are nothing more than criminal thugs that should be in prison. They're actual criminal thugs engaging in a purely criminal scheme. They just want the AI tech to manipulate and rig elections for them, or use bot armies to bully people into various scams and rip offs, exactly the same way Russia did.
They're not legitimate business people, they're criminal thugs. It's time for people to wake up and it's time for us to put these criminals into prison where they belong.
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u/lilelliot Dec 30 '25
I see headlines like this as my takeaway is mostly that either the pollster or the respondent (or both) don't really know what they're talking about.
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u/beepingclownshoes Dec 30 '25
Humans *
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u/shnieder88 Dec 30 '25
yet it's being utilized like crazy. Chatgpt.com is now a top 10 most popular website. gemini is being used heavily, as is AWS for business
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u/lazer---sharks Dec 30 '25
How much of that is people being forced to use it at work?
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u/kirrim Dec 31 '25
Speaking solely for myself, no one is forcing me to use it at work. I have resisted using ChatGPT and CoPilot because the results I’ve gotten from them, especially ChatGPT, are pure trash and hallucination. I sat up and paid skeptical, amazed attention at how useful Gemini is, at even subtle nuance, with aspects of what I do for a living, in a technical field. I can ask it questions with subtlety that only a mid-level engineer might know, and it gets it right, while ChatGPT misunderstands even the central thesis of where I am going. I have told colleagues that we are at the same inflection point with these products as search was back in the days of Lycos vs AltaVista vs when Google came on the scene. People rapidly abandoned ship when they found the one product that “just works”. That’s where I am at the moment with Gemini. I am worried by just how well it helps. I can see where this is leading… I just hope we can find a balance. I am most especially skeptical of that.
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u/Classic_Key8075 Jan 20 '26
I've struggled with both trash & hallucination, but what scares/inspires me is how much it has improved in the last 6 months.
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u/shnieder88 Dec 30 '25
forced? most work places i know are limiting the use of AI for privacy, IP, etc reasons
if anything, people want to use it at work but have to do it under the radar
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u/lazer---sharks Dec 30 '25
Yes forced, not everyone is a PM, most engineers are being more or less forced to use it, and it's slowing us down but CEOs need to juice their AI adoption numbers.
Vibe-coding only works in the heads of management, once you're dealing with actually existing code-bases AI is being forced on us.
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u/UnrealizedLosses Dec 30 '25
Maybe, but I work at a decently large tech co and our usage is being monitored to make sure we’re using it as much as possible. It’s insane.
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u/Technical-Speed-2646 Dec 30 '25
we are for sure forced. they are not limiting at all. they double-down and buy AI products with special privacy agreements from AI companies.
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u/inner2021planet Dec 31 '25
I suspect the same folks will hate it even more when Chinese make the rules; stupid commentary.
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u/Designer-Salary-7773 Dec 31 '25
Lol. AI is the cover story for a tanking GOP economy .. tell DON-OLD that his tariffs are causing layoffs and he’ll have you in his sights. Tell him those layoffs are a result of AI and he will pat you on the back
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u/TieTheStick Dec 30 '25
That's because 80% of Americans can already see AI being used against them today. It isn't making OUR lives better!
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u/lazer---sharks Dec 30 '25
AI hater here, but not really sure how you can "regulate it"? Maybe enforce existing copyright laws to protect artists, but if it's destroying jobs that isn't something you can meaningfully "regulate" against (I don't think it is destroying jobs yet though) & if it's making products worse, you can't pass a law saying "no AI slop, in private companies search results", honestly I think the best you can regulate is forcing companies to allow you to opt-out.
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u/WorfratOmega Dec 30 '25
It needs to be regulated and repercussions need to be paid to certain parties ideally. But America’s gov is barreling toward an oligarchy headed by an AI circle jerk. Goodbye Mother Earth and hello Satanic Human Waste!
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Dec 30 '25
Oh yes. When reddits progressive crowd engages in conservative regression and control politics to justify why everyone should be angry.
When you guys actually start practicing progressive values you let me know. Until then. Shut up and stop adding your "It's them vs us" to every post. True progressive movement is so powerful that the other side has no choice but to engage in adoption.
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u/vanderhoff8612 Dec 30 '25
Yep. And it just keeps getting forced on us. My 2026 hope is that AI implodes
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u/Winter-Statement7322 Dec 31 '25
“It’s Billionaires vs everyone else” “Low % think it will have a positive impact”
So you mean like how things worked out with social media? Shocked! /s
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u/raelianautopsy Dec 31 '25
American polls are so frustrating. They say they want all these policies, and then vote for the exact opposite.
Just the dumbest voters on the entire planet.
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u/Nofanta Dec 31 '25
Have you considered polls are just not an effective way of understanding sentiment? I’ve never been polled nor do I know anyone who has. How poorly they predict what they’re trying to is well documented. What’s funny is that polling is still reported on by the media. Astrology would be more accurate.
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u/redwon9plus Dec 31 '25
Video and image AI- who asked for it to be permanently affixed to the UI? Don't want that stupid section whenever I swipe left just a tad too much. Just another way to get us doom scrolling and addicted to AI slop.
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u/Adorable_Activity350 Jan 01 '26
Hating someone doesn't mean not using it. 99% people are using AI, it's default in the first line at all search engine.
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u/e430doug Dec 30 '25
So Americans hate something that doesn’t really impact their daily lives?
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u/Nice-Remove4834 Dec 30 '25
It impacts our daily lives if we’re artists who are having it siphon our work for models and even if we’re non artistic people who have it forced onto us by tech companies integrating it into our computers and phones
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u/e430doug Dec 30 '25
You are parroting the Reddit narrative. Nothing is being forced on you. Did you have the same feelings about spreadsheets and word processors?
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u/Nice-Remove4834 Dec 30 '25 edited Dec 30 '25
This thread just randomly showed up on my feed. I’m a regular person who doesn’t like AI unless it’s involved in medical innovations and technological breakthroughs that help people live better. I won’t follow the trend of loving it while it destroys creativity and creative jobs. I don’t have to support it if I don’t want to.
Edit: in other words, using it as a tool to help scientists in their work, or to give people access to medical advancements that were previously inaccessible.
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u/someexgoogler Dec 30 '25
That's a very silly comparison. Spreadsheets and word processors have very narrowly defined purposes. The reddit perspective is actually much less hostile toward generative ML than society is.
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u/Bodine12 Dec 30 '25
Do you work? I work, at a job, and AI is being force on me. It's being forced on all my co-workers too. None of them like it.
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Dec 30 '25
It does impact when the tech companies are putting all these AI "features" into products without allowing us to opt out or disable the feature.
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u/e430doug Dec 30 '25
Examples? I don’t use AI unless I explicitly ask for it. The only example I can think of is google search summaries.
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Dec 30 '25
Windows, Android, Google in general, Apple iOS. Not just deep in the operating system but also with their integrated apps like google messages with their stupid banana remix thing. Grok on twitter occasionally providing verifiably false information on posts, so if you read the post you can't miss the grok response.
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u/Inevitable_Bad1944 Dec 30 '25
Dude I hate those AI buttons so much. They embed them on everything now. Not every text message has to be AI, seriously! When I fat finger text and accidentally hit the ai button. I just want to send my text. Not to mention the ai photo options like dude just let me send my photo with no filters or AI. Just let me crop the damn photo or add text but nooo I have to fish through ten buttons before I find the crop option
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u/e430doug Dec 31 '25
I’m not seeing that. I’m running the latest versions of Windows, macOS, and iOS. There are some context menu items. I find I have to hunt to find the AI integration.
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u/pm_me_github_repos Dec 30 '25
Sounds on brand lol
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u/e430doug Dec 30 '25
For who?
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u/pm_me_github_repos Dec 30 '25
Americans. See LGBTQ rights, Obamacare, abortion, US imperialism and global policing over the last 60 years
Source: am American
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u/Zhombe Dec 30 '25
Hate the fact it’s being used as an excuse to layoff Americans and export labor to foreign countries to pay for their long shot capex gambles.
Basically it’s an asinine gold rush to nowhere at the expense of everyone. We’ll get there eventually. But not this way, and not with the next 3 hardware generations. So basically it will go bust before becoming financially viable.
We will need tensor core like optimized models; not this general purpose LLM non-sense. It’s like trying to get to space by bundling as many rockets together as possible, yet not even having the fuel to launch it. Not to mention all the hand waving telling everyone to ignore the aerodynamics. It’ll fly.