Anti-AI Sentiment

Extracted Attributes

• Nature

  A coherent orientation, distinct from but related to other psychological and political factors.

• Associated Term

  AI slop

• Primary Drivers

  Perceived risks of AI (job displacement, Orwellian surveillance, censorship) outweighing poorly communicated benefits.

• Policy Preferences

  Strongly predicts policy preferences and, in some cases, support for extreme actions.

• Workplace Concerns

  Fear of job displacement (40-60% of workers), concerns about data privacy and security, uncertainty about AI decision-making processes, anxiety about learning complex new systems.

• Impact on Creativity

  53% of U.S. adults believe AI will worsen people's ability to think creatively.

• Definition of AI Slop

  Digital content made with generative artificial intelligence, specifically when perceived to show a lack of effort, quality or deeper meaning, and an overwhelming volume of production.

• Psychological Factors

  Loneliness, conspiracism.

• Impact on Relationships

  50% of U.S. adults believe AI will worsen people's ability to form meaningful relationships.

• Characteristics of AI Slop

  Digital clutter, filler content prioritizing speed and quantity over substance and quality, shoddy or unwanted AI content, incredibly banal, realistic style.

• Public Trust in AI Content

  Many Americans don't trust their own ability to spot AI-generated content.

Timeline

• The term 'AI slop' was coined to describe low-quality, high-volume digital content generated by AI. (Source: Wikipedia)

  2020s

• Anti-AI sentiment on social media began to significantly take off, becoming a 'black-and-white, team sport' phenomenon. (Source: Reddit (web search))

  approx. 2022-2024

• A significant portion of the All-In Podcast episode was dedicated to dissecting Anti-AI Sentiment, with Tucker Carlson explaining it as a rational response to AI risks. (Source: All-In Podcast)

  Undated (recent)

AI slop

AI slop (sometimes shortened to just slop) is digital content made with generative artificial intelligence, specifically when perceived to show a lack of effort, quality or deeper meaning, and an overwhelming volume of production. It is a form of synthetic media usually linked to the monetization in the creator economy of social media and online advertising. Coined in the 2020s, the term has a pejorative connotation similar to spam. AI slop has been variously defined as "digital clutter", "filler content [prioritizing] speed and quantity over substance and quality", and "shoddy or unwanted AI content in social media, art, books [and] search results". Jonathan Gilmore, a philosophy professor at the City University of New York, describes the material as having an "incredibly banal, realistic style" which is easy for the viewer to process.

Web Search Results

• Does anyone else feel like anti-AI sentiment on social media has ...

  Over the last year or two, it feels like that "anything related to AI is evil" sentiment really started to take off, especially on social media. It seems to have become some kind of black-and-white, team sport, virtue signalling thing, where if you don't hate AI, you just hate the environment, hate human connection, hate creativity, hate artists, you're a thief, etc etc.. [...] IMO, pretty clearly ragebait (it's about a woman dramatically leaving a man at the altar during their wedding because she found out he used AI, and written very weirdly), but because the guy is being dumped for using AI, the community is eating it up. [...] Even replying to a claim of "AI has literally never been useful" by saying "they've helped me with simple programming tasks" has gotten me harassed by a bunch of people throwing personal insults, more than once. I mention I once used AI to color a pencil sketch I made by hand, and get told I'm not a "real artist". ANY story or news article that has something negative to do with AI gets boosted to the top, even if it's obviously false. The top post on a Reddit updates subreddit right now is,

• AI, Social Media, and the Politics of Anti-technology

  Our findings provide several insights about the nature and implications of anti-technology attitudes in the United States. We find that anti-tech sentiment is a coherent orientation, distinct from but related to other psychological and political factors. This orientation strongly predicts policy preferences and, in some cases, support for extreme actions. We identified which segments of the population were most likely to score high on our anti-tech orientation, finding that loneliness, [...] Using a pair of surveys and an experiment, we take an empirical approach to measure the contours of anti-technology sentiment among Americans. First, we measure three distinct anti-technology components: 1) negative attitudes toward social media , 2) fears over AI, and 3) a negative view of modernity. We show that these anti-technology components form an anti-tech disposition, which is relatively common among Americans. For instance, a majority of our survey respondents agree that “technology [...] has taken over our lives” or that social media harms young users and fuels envy and social comparisons. Over half of respondents also fear that AI could hurt humans. Psychological variables including loneliness and conspiracism are associated with stronger anti-tech sentiment. Partisanship plays a modest role as well (skepticism of technology and modernity is marginally more common among Republicans than Democrats). Unlike partisanship, the anti-tech orientation predicts support for breaking up

• 7 Reasons Why Some Businesses Will Never Adopt AI ...

  This fear creates active resistance to AI implementation initiatives. Staff members may deliberately avoid using new AI tools or provide minimal cooperation during training sessions. Survey data consistently shows that 40-60% of workers express concern about AI replacing their jobs within the next decade. These statistics reflect genuine workplace anxiety rather than abstract technological concerns. [...] This discomfort stems from unclear expectations about AI usage in workplace settings. Your employees need explicit guidance on acceptable AI applications. Common sources of employee resistance include: Fear of job displacement Concerns about data privacy and security Uncertainty about AI decision-making processes Anxiety about learning complex new systems [...] Organizational cultures built on traditional work methods often reject AI integration regardless of potential benefits. Your company’s established processes and decision-making structures may inherently oppose technological disruption. Long-tenured employees frequently champion existing procedures and resist changes to familiar workflows. They may view AI adoption as an unnecessary complication rather than an opportunity for improvement.

• How Americans View AI and Its Impact on People and Society

  Most Americans don’t support AI playing a role in personal matters such as religion or matchmaking. They’re more open to AI for heavy data analysis, such as for weather forecasting and developing new medicines. Americans feel strongly that it’s important to be able to tell if pictures, videos or text were made by AI or by humans. Yet many don’t trust their own ability to spot AI-generated content. [...] U.S. adults are generally pessimistic about AI’s effect on people’s ability to think creatively and form meaningful relationships: 53% say AI will _worsen_ people’s ability to think creatively, compared with 16% who say it will _improve_ this. An identical share (16%) says AI will make this skill neither better nor worse. [...] Image 2: Chart shows About half say AI will worsen people’s ability to think creatively and form meaningful relationships Far more say AI will _worsen_ rather than _improve_ people’s ability to form meaningful relationships (50% vs. 5%). One-quarter say AI won’t make this better or worse. Americans are relatively more optimistic about AI improving problem-solving: 29% of U.S. adults say it will make people _better_ at this skill. Still, a larger share (38%) says AI will make this _worse_.

• Every Reason Why I Hate AI and You Should Too - MalwareTech

  So, in fear of being replaced by the hypothetical ‘AI-accelerated employee’, people are forgoing acquiring essential skills and deep knowledge, instead choosing to focus on “prompt engineering”. It’s somewhat ironic, because if AGI happens there will be no need for ‘prompt-engineers’. And if it doesn’t, the people with only surface level knowledge who cannot perform tasks without the help of AI will be extremely abundant, and thus extremely replaceable. [...] Much of this fear is exacerbated by people attributing the mass layoffs and lack of available jobs to AI replacement. This is very much not the case, but the economics of it all is extremely complex and would require its own article. But what matter is that people believe it to be true, and tech companies are more than happy to lean into those narratives to hype up their AI products. But fear makes people behave irrationally, and that’s currently a main driving force behind AI adoption.