Comment by fastball
3 hours ago
ChatGPT (a 3 year old product) has nearly one billion WAU.
Some people detest businesses slopping AI at them, but the evidence suggests consumers love using AI, which is presumably one of the primary uses of a micro LLM model that runs locally on your computer and is embedded in your browser.
People that post on "local subreddits" and the randos that protest datacenters are once again a vocal minority. Reddit in particular is probably the most echo-chambery destination on the web.
There's an important distinction between chatbots people go to on websites or download from the app store versus a product downloading without their consent. There's also a massive difference from large power and water hungry data centers being built near people. I don't think those are particularly popular across party lines regardless of ChatGPT usage.
So yeah in general AI as a helpful tool people use online is popular. AI to replace jobs, build data centers and do unknown things on your device without consent, not so much. AI to potentially replace workers, not popular at all.