Comment by sublinear

A significant portion of the population didn't need journalists feeding them a negative opinion.

More people alive today are educated in computer science than ever before. The same is true of epistemology, linguistics, and broader philosophy. Many have also lived long enough to see previous waves of AI come and go.

People were already watching the topic closely over a decade ago with DeepMind, AlphaGo, etc. None of the arguments against the current AI methods are new. People were poking holes in statistical methods centuries ago.

Mainstream media just waits for the right time to pounce and attempt to sway everyone else who is uncertain or out of the loop. They actually started out with a pro-AI stance. That in no way implies the majority was ever out of the loop or believed in any of the hype. The public are not a flock of baby birds waiting for their empty minds to be fed.

The majority doesn't even care about the principle of the matter. They are far more interested in whether it actually works reliably. The appeals to emotion, political bias, or ego are wildly out of touch and outdated. What you're observing today with young people is not that they have different "opinions", but that they are burned out on all opinions. We forced them to become so much more sophisticated and discerning by pressing that button too many times. You'd be just as cynical if you spent your childhood watching an iPad deliver endless ragebait.