Americans see AI not as a tool for progress, but as the ultimate weapon for a new corporate ethos where profits surge *because* of layoffs and offshoring. This breaks the historical assumption that company success benefits employees, making workers view AI as an existential threat.

OpenAI frames GPT-6's ability to autonomously perform knowledge work like financial modeling as a benefit. This is perceived not as helpful, but as a boast about replacing human jobs, highlighting Silicon Valley's failure to understand broader economic anxieties.

There's a fundamental mismatch between the AI community's ideal future and public desires. While AI leaders evangelize Universal Basic Income (UBI) and radical life extension, polls show most Americans want to work and are not sold on immortality. This disconnect undermines positive storytelling efforts.

The younger generation's negative sentiment toward AI isn't Luddism. It's a feeling of being 'double-crossed' by tech leaders who are creating technology that will eliminate their future job prospects, leading to anger over economic disenfranchisement.

As AI automates tasks, it erodes the implicit deal where society provides education and people work hard in exchange for stability and opportunity. This raises profound questions about fairness, retraining responsibilities, and whether a job should remain the primary source of security and status.

Public economic anxiety isn't irrational; it's a direct response to messaging from AI leaders like Sam Altman. Their business model, and the justification for their valuations, is predicated on capturing the economic value of human labor, a fact the public has correctly understood and now fears.

The unpopularity of AI is not driven by sci-fi scenarios but by the immediate, personal question: 'What's going to happen to me?' Leaders have failed to explain how AI will concretely affect the jobs and opportunities of everyday workers.

By framing its primary benefit as automating jobs, the tech industry has adopted the persona of a "heel"—a wrestling term for a villain. This messaging alienates mainstream audiences, who see tech as a threat, contrasting with past narratives of connection and delight.

Offering UBI confirms the public's fear that their labor has no future value. This reinforces a power dynamic of tech leaders as "moral agents" and the public as passive "moral patients," stripping people of dignity and provoking resentment rather than gratitude.