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

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

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