The three realities of AI
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Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
Three distinct camps are forming around AI: power users, doubters and resisters.
Why it matters: AI isn't just advancing — it's fragmenting how people see the world.
The big picture: The disconnect is showing up everywhere — from job-loss fears to data center protests to actual violence.
- Doubters still see AI as glitchy chatbots and viral fails. They aren't using its full capabilities.
- Power users run AI agents around the clock, trading tips on how to automate work and decision-making.
- Resisters understand AI, think they know where it's headed and want no part of it.
What they're saying: "There is a growing gap in understanding of AI capability," former OpenAI and Tesla AI leader, Andrej Karpathy posted on X. He added that many people let a single session with ChatGPT's free tier define their view of AI.
- Meanwhile, Karpathy told the "No Priors" podcast that he now spends 16 hours a day issuing commands to AI agent swarms and rushes to exhaust his tokens every month.
- "AI adoption is a tale of two cities," Box CEO Aaron Levie said on X.
By the numbers: It's a virtuous cycle. Power users have more success and more productivity boosts than casual users.
- Anthropic's March economic impact report found that experienced users attempt harder tasks and succeed more often.
- The result is a new kind of economic gap between advanced users and everyone else.
Between the lines: The third group of resisters are getting louder.
- In Indianapolis, a legislator said his home was hit by gunfire, with a note left behind saying 'no more data centers.'
- And on Friday, a man was arrested for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's home and had also visited OpenAI's offices before being taken into custody.
- The San Francisco Chronicle reports that someone with the same name as the suspect has published anti-AI essays and participated in a PauseAI Discord server. PauseAI is an activist group that advocates halting AI development.
State of play: Protests are becoming more common in San Francisco, where many AI firms are based, and in communities targeted for new data centers.
- A growing number of workers with technical skills fear AI will make them obsolete.
- In a viral post, a Meta engineer captured a spreading anxiety. "I'm done with tech and I'm done with this unfair world," the engineer wrote.
Altman expressed optimism in a post after the attack, while acknowledging public fear and concern.
- "It will not all go well," Altman wrote. "The fear and anxiety about AI is justified; we are in the process of witnessing the largest change to society in a long time, and perhaps ever."
Bottom line: The people building and using AI at full power are living in a very different world from everyone else.
