The CEO of Springboards, a startup developing an LLM with diverse responses, described his company as 'self-loathing AI.' He said, 'We often say that we’re a self-loathing AI company. We don’t know if we really like what we’re doing.' This sentiment reflects a broader public love/hate relationship with AI.
According to Pew Research Center, more U.S. adults now believe AI will have a negative impact than a positive one. A Stanford University report found that more than half of people worldwide say AI products make them nervous. In a Gallup poll, 71% of U.S. adults opposed new AI data centers, far exceeding opposition to new nuclear power plants.
ChatGPT reached one billion monthly users in May, while Google DeepMind’s Gemini logged 950 million users in July. Pew also found that half of U.S. adults now use chatbots, more than twice the number from 2023. Globally, over a third of adults in OECD countries have used generative AI tools in the last three months.
'When people say they hate AI, it’s not the technology they dislike but the relentless drive of the companies behind it to push the tech upon us in as many ways as possible,' the Springboards CEO said. He emphasized that while LLMs are hard to walk back from, they can still be made to do something different.
The CEO’s comments come as AI adoption continues to rise despite growing public skepticism. There is a correlation between high adoption rates in the Global North and pessimism about AI, while lower adoption in the Global South correlates with more optimism.
Springboards did not say whether it will scale back AI development, and it remains unclear how public sentiment will shape the future of AI. The company is hopeful that more clarity about AI’s capabilities and a technology not framed as world-conquering will emerge.
Source: mittr
