/Tech1d ago

Analysis of 25,000 YouTube and TikTok videos finds pro-AI content outnumbers anti-AI content 3-to-1 by reach

Story Overview

A claimed scan of 25,000 TikTok and YouTube videos points to AI-embracing clips outpacing explicit resistance by a three-to-one reach margin, with everyday posts leaning into memes, creative tools, and job aids while pushback stays narrow. Princeton researcher Arvind Narayanan flagged the split against elite and polling narratives, yet no methodology, sampling frame, or primary report has surfaced to anchor the numbers.

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Andy Hall
Nitasha Tiku
Andrew Mayne
Arvind Narayanan#135
Original postNitasha Tiku#1701
Andy Hall@ahall_research

The popular conversation around AI in America looks nothing like the narratives the elites are driving.

For our new research, we analyzed 25,000 TikTok and YouTube videos about AI---and watched thousands of them ourselves---to understand how Americans are encountering AI in their everyday lives.

Despite an elite conversation focused largely on backlash, AI videos embracing AI outnumber videos about resisting AI 3 to 1.

These "adopter" videos don't focus on the things elites talk about: they talk about funny memes and effects AI can help make and ways you can use AI to help you with your job search.

There is a significant and organized social media community focused on resisting AI, but surprisingly, it's not mainly about job loss, data centers, or existential risk. Instead, it's about creative theft and the erosion of human-made art. This has all the hallmarks of a genuine movement---with organized efforts to support human artists, to report AI-generated content, and to oppose the technology in the real world.

All in all, when we look past the efforts of the labs and the media to impose a top-down narrative around job loss and existential risk, we find everyday Americans having a far different and in many ways more "normal" conversation (@random_walker)---one in which AI offers immediate and personal opportunities and challenges all at the same time.

Check out the full research piece, which is loaded with interesting real example videos, here:

https://freesystems.substack.com/p/memes-doom-how-tiktokers-and-youtubers

8:07 AM · Jun 9, 2026 · 123.3K Views
Open Question

What the ratio actually rests on

Without disclosed selection rules, coding process, or reach metrics the 3-to-1 figure floats unattached, leaving open whether the result holds across languages, time windows, or algorithm tweaks.

Public Pulse

Why the platform-to-elite gap matters

If the pattern holds it would show short-form users treating AI as a practical toy rather than a policy flashpoint, but the missing verification keeps any broader claim about public sentiment speculative for now.

Sentiment

Many users attacked research claiming AI adopters outnumber resisters three to one on TikTok and YouTube by calling the methodology garbage and insulting the researchers, while others praised the findings as interesting and valuable.

Pos
24.3%
Neg
75.7%
26 comments with sentiment.
Cluster Engagement
Posts from X
Most Activity
Most Activity
VIEWS9.2KBOOKMARKS35REPLIES8
Arvind Narayanan@random_walker

This is a really excellent data analysis. One question it raises is how to square all the polling showing majority-negative sentiment toward AI with the finding in this post that there's a 3:1 ratio of AI-embracing to AI-resisting content (weighted by reach). A few possible ways: * Those who embrace AI are more likely to create / consume content about it than those who resist it (perhaps because AI itself makes it easier to make engaging content). * Polling reflects stated preferences, content creation/consumption reflects a mix of revealed and stated preferences, and usage reflects revealed preferences, so the three won't necessarily align. * There is actually no contradiction between adopting AI and resisting it. Many people are anxious or angry about AI's impacts, wish it didn't exist, and resent AI being shoved into everything, but at the same time see the benefits of using AI for entertainment or productivity.

Andy Hall@ahall_research

The popular conversation around AI in America looks nothing like the narratives the elites are driving.

For our new research, we analyzed 25,000 TikTok and YouTube videos about AI---and watched thousands of them ourselves---to understand how Americans are encountering AI in their everyday lives.

Despite an elite conversation focused largely on backlash, AI videos embracing AI outnumber videos about resisting AI 3 to 1.

These "adopter" videos don't focus on the things elites talk about: they talk about funny memes and effects AI can help make and ways you can use AI to help you with your job search.

There is a significant and organized social media community focused on resisting AI, but surprisingly, it's not mainly about job loss, data centers, or existential risk. Instead, it's about creative theft and the erosion of human-made art. This has all the hallmarks of a genuine movement---with organized efforts to support human artists, to report AI-generated content, and to oppose the technology in the real world.

All in all, when we look past the efforts of the labs and the media to impose a top-down narrative around job loss and existential risk, we find everyday Americans having a far different and in many ways more "normal" conversation (@random_walker)---one in which AI offers immediate and personal opportunities and challenges all at the same time.

Check out the full research piece, which is loaded with interesting real example videos, here:

https://freesystems.substack.com/p/memes-doom-how-tiktokers-and-youtubers

1dViews 9.2KLikes 41Bookmarks 35
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Ted Lieu@tedlieu

@ahall_research Encountering and using AI is different than what a person may think about AI or data centers or job loss etc.

The public sentiment we are seeing regarding AI comes from straight forward polling questions, not from elite conversations.

1dViews 2.4KLikes 77Bookmarks 3
Andy Hall@ahall_research

Thanks! We measure at the video level not the channel level, and only in 2026. These channels include both doom and non-doom videos so we wouldn't want to count them all. That being said I'm sure we're missing a bunch of videos, both on the doom side and also on the non-doom side. Lots more to do to improve the measurement going forward.

1dViews 352Likes 4Bookmarks 1
Lisa Rayle@lisarayle_

@ahall_research Interesting, and aligns with the “normal” people I know. I wonder what slice of the population watches these videos

1dViews 727Likes 2
Nirit Weiss-Blatt, PhD@DrTechlash

@ahall_research In your sample, "existential risk" gets to only 8% with 45 million views.

Please note that this sample of x-risk YouTube channels (without TikTok) got to more than a quarter of a billion views (271 million views).

So the "doom" share appears to be much higher.

1dViews 609Likes 9
Andrew Mayne@AndrewMayne

A really good look at how people on YouTube and TikTok are talking about AI.

It’s a very different conversation than the one we see inside X.

Andy Hall@ahall_research

The popular conversation around AI in America looks nothing like the narratives the elites are driving.

For our new research, we analyzed 25,000 TikTok and YouTube videos about AI---and watched thousands of them ourselves---to understand how Americans are encountering AI in their everyday lives.

Despite an elite conversation focused largely on backlash, AI videos embracing AI outnumber videos about resisting AI 3 to 1.

These "adopter" videos don't focus on the things elites talk about: they talk about funny memes and effects AI can help make and ways you can use AI to help you with your job search.

There is a significant and organized social media community focused on resisting AI, but surprisingly, it's not mainly about job loss, data centers, or existential risk. Instead, it's about creative theft and the erosion of human-made art. This has all the hallmarks of a genuine movement---with organized efforts to support human artists, to report AI-generated content, and to oppose the technology in the real world.

All in all, when we look past the efforts of the labs and the media to impose a top-down narrative around job loss and existential risk, we find everyday Americans having a far different and in many ways more "normal" conversation (@random_walker)---one in which AI offers immediate and personal opportunities and challenges all at the same time.

Check out the full research piece, which is loaded with interesting real example videos, here:

https://freesystems.substack.com/p/memes-doom-how-tiktokers-and-youtubers

1dViews 2.1KLikes 2Bookmarks 0
Đoc@ponzibaron

@ahall_research @jon_stokes This is why I think @OpenAI and @sama have hit a goldmine with fun “goblin” lore - instant win with the majority of users and a way to humanize them in an increasingly scary cohort of frontier labs

1dViews 179Likes 6
Andy Hall@ahall_research

@tedlieu Agreed! In those polls AI isn’t even a top 20 issue in importance, though.

1dViews 312Likes 1
Andy Hall@ahall_research

Yeah it’s a great question! Even though these videos get a lot of reach the vast majority of people won’t have seen any given one. Both because reach is generally modest and because social media viewing follows its own power law where most content is consumed by a smaller number of power users. An important point that @davidshor made to me

1dViews 615Likes 4
Tom Goodwin@tomfgoodwin

@ahall_research Studying what the elites say is unrepresentative

As is studying what YouTubers are, or worse still, what people are watching.

1dViews 483Likes 4
LIFE 2030 and Beyond@life2030com

Sadly, my last reply to your message has been quietly deleted by X's moderation without providing any explanation to me.

Here, I am posting my last reply again:

How you frame your research is interesting. Instead of "AI-supporters VS AI-resisters", your research uses the names "AI-adopters VS AI-resisters".

AI-adopters ≠ AI-supporters, because a great many AI-adopters may not actually support the development of AI. Many people adopted AI due to the burden of their jobs, schools, finance, competition, or other reasons. They may have no alternative choices.

So, 1.43 Billion views on AI-adopters' videos on this research can be easily misinterpreted by general public as the number of views on AI-supporters' videos, because many people might easily conflate AI-adopters with AI-supporters.

Economy is the backbone of our society. In comparison, all ideologies, like supporting AI or hating AI, play relatively minor roles in our society. Based on this perspective, it is not really a surprise to find out that the number of views on AI-adopters' videos is significantly more than the views on AI-resisters' videos, because your research is comparing "the popularity of AI-driven economy VS the popularity of AI-resisters", rather than comparing the two ideologies "the popularity of AI-supporters VS the popularity of AI-resisters".

From my personal experience, I also pay attention about the number of movies and video games. For example:

1) In today's market, how many sci-fi movies and video games set their stories in dystopian worlds?

2) In today's market, how many sci-fi movies and video games set their stories in Utopian worlds?

3) How many sci-fi movies and video games demonize technologies as villains?

4) How many sci-fi movies and video games portrait technologies as rescuers?

5) How many sci-fi movies and video games support or demonize AI, respectively?

6) What about sentiments related to AI carried by news media, TV stations, popular novels?

[Here are some quotes from movies: "Control the media, control the minds. Whoever controls the media defines reality." Although these quotes may not be the truth, I feel some weights or reasons under the current context and my situation.]

19hViews 8Bookmarks 1
Andy Hall@ahall_research

@life2030com Thank you! Let me look into this. Is that TikTok or YouTube?

1dViews 81Likes 1
Sean@sean_from_earth

I see a huge difference online vs offline.

Online it's like ww3, in real life (liberal family and friends), it's just not important enough to get very excited about. Most of them don't use it other than google.

The sci-fi author thing is funny actually. They should have read Nexus which did a great job of exploring the risks of wisely accessible tech vs even more risks of centralized control of it.

1dViews 27Likes 1
Sean@sean_from_earth

@ramez Yeah, I totally flipped on this after enough conversations with people outside the industry/activism/twitter - they mostly didn't care or were not upset and those who didn't like AI were way more angry about other things.

1dViews 55Likes 4
Nirit Weiss-Blatt, PhD@DrTechlash

@ahall_research Clearly, the measurement is different between the two lists (videos vs channels, timeframe, focus of overall analysis).

My point is that the x-risk content is increasingly "flooding the zone". And we should be aware of it, and address its problematic impact.

1dViews 61Likes 3
Punished Himbo@Punished_HIMBY

@ahall_research Sounds like you have yr head up yr 🍑- bc culturally everyone is making fun of GenAI EXCEPT 'the elites' & linkedin lunatics such as yourself. Making statistics from YOUR OWN AI-loving algorithm doesn't prove anything, dipstick. Except that you have bad taste.

1dViews 108Likes 2
Andy Hall@ahall_research

@random_walker Yes these are super interesting ideas! In principle we can start to tease them apart with a survey that is linked to social media accounts. That would make for a super cool follow up.

1dViews 98Likes 2
Ben Schroeter@ben_schroeter

@ahall_research Great research, but there's an obvious sampling bias. Historically, the first major use-case of every new online technology has been porn/romance. It's hard to believe that's different this time.

1dViews 234
Ramez Naam@ramez

@sean_from_earth My Facebook feed has a lot of anti-AI sentiment. Liberal friends + sci fi authors.

1dViews 19Likes 2
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