The AI Industry Is Discovering That the Public Hates It

Here again there is a gap between public statements and on-the-ground facts. Microsoft’s Community-First Initiative sounds great but does not have any form of independent accountability mechanism built in. OpenAI’s new white paper signals a move toward progressive tech policy, but its president, Greg Brockman, has funneled millions into a SuperPAC opposing state-level AI regulation efforts. OpenAI is also currently supporting a state legislature bill in Illinois (Senate Bill 3444) that would shield it from large-scale harms caused by the AI models (Anthropic, for its part, opposes the bill).

These examples underscore the pattern that Ronan Farrow noted in his recent New Yorker exposé about Sam Altman—that he would regularly publicly support one position and then quickly reverse course when it seemed like doing so would benefit his company.

If Altman, Amodei, and their Big Tech peers want to rebuild public trust and create a genuine technology that benefits the public, then the path forward isn’t another white paper or postulating about the existential risks of their technology. It’s sustained, verifiable action: genuine transparency about what their products can do, a willingness to accept meaningful regulation and responsibility even at financial cost, and real democratic input from communities on the growth of data centers. Otherwise, this burgeoning AI populism movement will continue to scale up—as will the potential for violence that accompanies it.