The One Issue Unifying the American Public: AI Backlash

Gary Marcus highlights a striking new poll from the Annenberg Public Policy Center showing opposition to data centers rising sharply. The underlying issue: growing public backlash against AI and its consequences. Marcus predicts that by 2028, anti-AI sentiment will likely become a major factor in the U.S. Presidential election. While AI technology itself could have been beneficial, the combination of greed, overhype, and recklessness has created widespread problems: **The Real-World AI Problems:** - Lawyers weaponizing AI to spam corporations with garbage lawsuits - Students cheating with AI while teachers outsource their entire jobs to ChatGPT - Approximately 30% of web content is now AI-generated slop - Codebases being infested with low-quality AI code - Data center expansion creating environmental and community concerns The common thread unifying public opinion across the political spectrum: frustration with how AI is actually being deployed. Rather than solving problems, AI tools are being used to amplify existing harms—automating spam, enabling cheating, flooding the internet with garbage content, and creating economic displacement without clear benefits. Marcus sums it up: "AI could have been a great thing. Greed, overhype, and recklessness have screwed it up." Whether 2028 proves his prediction correct, the polling data shows the public mood is already shifting.