People can dislike the AI industry’s relentless push and still find chatbots useful enough to keep coming back. A new MIT Technology Review essay argues that public scepticism may be aimed less at AI itself than at the companies’ insistence that it is inevitable.
Watch Desk analysis
What happened
The essay sets sour public attitudes alongside fast-growing adoption. It cites Pew findings that half of US adults now use a chatbot, more than twice the share in 2023, and says one in four use one daily. It also cites a Gallup poll in which 71% of US adults opposed a new AI data centre in their area.
Those figures come from different surveys and measure different things: chatbot use, personal attitudes and local opposition to infrastructure. Together, the essay argues, they suggest that use does not automatically mean enthusiasm for the businesses building and deploying AI. Read the essay.
Why it matters
If people object to how AI is pushed on them, rather than to every use of the technology, the argument for consumer choice and meaningful rules gets stronger. The essay points to a growing patchwork of US state AI laws and the availability of open-source alternatives as ways people might exert influence, though neither guarantees that companies will change course.
It is a persuasive interpretation, not a finding that the surveys prove people’s motives. The gap between reaching for a chatbot and welcoming its wider consequences is precisely where the public debate gets interesting.
Our read
“People use it, therefore they love it” is a wonderfully convenient conclusion for an industry selling more of it. The essay offers a better question: are people choosing AI on their own terms, or adapting to a technology being pushed into more corners of daily life? The distinction matters to anyone building, buying or regulating these systems.
What to watch
- Whether later surveys distinguish attitudes to specific AI tools from views of the companies deploying them.
- Whether open-source alternatives give users meaningful choice beyond a different model name.
- How US state AI laws develop, and whether their patchwork changes companies’ behaviour.
Discussion spark: If people use AI tools while opposing their wider rollout, should companies treat that use as consent to expand, or as a sign that better choices and stronger rules are needed?
Sources and evidence
- People really hate AI, so why can’t they get enough? (5 October 2026, 08:00 UTC)
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