Good morning. The authorities in Switzerland continue to investigate the cause of a New Year’s Eve fire that left around 40 people dead. We have the latest on that news below. But first, an exploration of the uniquely American animosity toward artificial intelligence.
Rage quit
Technological change can be unsettling. Industrialization brought a moral panic. Telegraphs, radio, telephones and TV were hard to swallow. The internet has been polarizing, too. But artificial intelligence has brought a whole new level of fear and loathing. It’s easy to have an opinion when the tech is everywhere. Chatbots are in kids’ classrooms. Autonomous agents rank résumés and conduct job interviews. Software companies use A.I. to write code. Lawyers use it to draft legal briefs. Experts say we’re adopting it faster than any other technology in history. As these tools spread, the ranks of skeptics are growing. Haters, too. Most Americans are concerned about A.I., polling shows. Fewer are excited. And four out of five of those optimists still say they’re alarmed. The freakout shows up everywhere. Hollywood screenwriters and actors went on strike when they thought A.I. might replace them. Nurses in California protested the rush to implement what they called “untested and unregulated” technology. Hordes of haters vandalized ads for A.I. on the New York City subway. Doomsayers warn that A.I. will annihilate the human race. Here’s how to understand the animosity. The backlash(es)A.I. is broad. A breakthrough in manufacturing may affect only manufacturing, but an A.I. breakthrough could transform manufacturing, physics, finance, music and dozens of other fields. So the backlash is just as sprawling, and there are various reasons for it:
There are also massive data centers siphoning off energy and water. There are artists and creatives losing control of their copyrighted work. There are users obsessing over their virtual companions. And there are Silicon Valley executives, just a handful, who increasingly control this technology. American scrollers
These worries are real. But in many cases, they’re about changes that haven’t come yet. One reason we have such strong feelings is that we have pre-existing views of digital tech. “The frame through which Americans are viewing technological change is the rise of social media,” said Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford law professor who studies A.I. For more than a decade, Americans have been revolting against social media for farming their data, limiting their privacy and getting kids hooked. That backlash long predated mainstream A.I. In polls just months before ChatGPT’s release, around two-thirds of Americans said they saw social media as a bad thing for democracy. People in many other developed democracies — Japan, Israel, Sweden, South Korea — had warm views of social media in a 2022 survey; now respondents in those countries feel more optimistic about A.I. Americans, on the other hand, approach the A.I. revolution skeptically, Persily said. We’re more concerned about this technology than just about anyone else. More on A.I.
The fire that tore through a New Year’s Eve celebration in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, killed around 40 people and injured more than 100 others, officials said yesterday. Bruno Martins, 17, said he was headed to the bar, Le Constellation, to meet friends when he saw it engulfed in flames. “It was total panic,” he said. “People were trampling each other.” Here’s what we know about the blaze. The cause: Officials said that a fire at the bar was followed by an explosion that was likely caused by flashover, a phenomenon in which a fire in an enclosed space spreads rapidly. The victims: Survivors were flown on helicopters and jets to specialized hospitals in Switzerland. But the number of people with severe burns exceeds the capacity of the country’s burn units. Some patients are being transported to hospitals in France, Germany and Italy. The location: Crans-Montana is an alpine ski resort town that caters to a wealthy, sometimes famous, clientele and offers views of the Matterhorn. The bar where the fire took place, Le Constellation, was a low-key venue popular with a younger crowd.
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