AI Was Supposed to Replace Us… So What Happened?

It is the early morning of April 11, 2026, and the tech world is left in shock after hearing this news. The founder of OpenAI under attack today after police say somebody threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman's home. But just a couple of days later, another worse incident was making headlines. Another violent incident in the neighborhood where OpenAI CEO Sam Altman lives. Two people are charged with firing gunshots there on Sunday. What was interesting about this was the apparent motive behind these attacks. Police say they also found Moreno-Gama's writings, which show disturbing viewpoints opposed to AI. In one document titled, Your Last Warning, Moreno-Gama allegedly called for the deaths of other AI company CEOs. But beyond this incident, in general, acceptance of AI is rapidly declining. From data center bans to plummeting public perception, AI companies are facing increasing Recent surveys estimate that nearly 70% of Americans have developed a negative perception of AI. Some of the reasons have been the displacement of jobs it has caused. We're also following breaking news out of the tech world tonight that you may have heard about. Amazon set to announce massive layoffs. Google, Intel, and now San Francisco's Oracle, as well as Salesforce making cuts to their workforce. Even it's ecological impacts and effects on natural resources. But the question is, if AI promised to be the technology of the future, how did we get here? To understand this, we need to go back a few years. November 30, 2022 marked a before and after in the history of modern technology. That day, ChatGPT was publicly launched. A chatbot developed by OpenAI that, within days, began generating unprecedented excitement. What initially seemed like just another tool within the broad technological world, quickly became one of the fastest growing consumer products in history. In just two months, ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users. An absolute record that surpassed the growth of platforms like TikTok, which took 9 months, and Instagram, which needed more than 2 years to reach the same figure. This explosive growth not only captured the attention of the general public, but also sparked alarm and interest among major tech companies. Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and practically the entire digital industry began to see Artificial Intelligence as the next great economic revolution and, above all, a way to make enormous amounts of money. The big banks are getting in on AI, JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon telling Bloomberg that the benefits of AI are huge, but warning that some workers could lose their jobs to it. For example, Microsoft invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, Google accelerated the development of its own models, and a wave of startups emerged with the promise of putting AI into all kinds of products and services. In December 2023, Google launched its Gemini model as a direct response to growing competition. While Anthropic introduced Claude, with a focus on safety and enterprise performance. During that year, the promise of all tech companies was that Artificial Intelligence was not only the future, but that this future had arrived earlier than expected. And business adoption was immediate, as tools for generating text, images, video, and code began appearing at a dizzying pace. Technology companies fiercely competed to launch the next big model, each promising to be more powerful, more accurate, and more revolutionary than the last. However, as the speed of development increased, so did the problems. Tonight the urgent warning from a top AI executive, Dario Amode, but tonight he's out with a new essay for everyone, warning that future AI tech could post a real danger to civilization as we know it. Just as companies began adopting AI at scale, mass layoffs also grew at the same pace, and not only in the tech sector. From the finance sector to law firms, everyone wanted a piece of what promised to be a tool to exponentially increase profits while reducing costs at the same rate. It is estimated that since 2023, more than 120,000 jobs have been replaced by AI across all sectors. This caused people to begin seeing AI not as a tool, but as a direct threat to their jobs. A survey revealed that nearly 90% of workers laid off due to AI, worsened their perception of this technology. But the backlash against AI was not only growing among those who lost their jobs, but also among the general public. In 2024, Coca-Cola launched a commercial made 100% with AI. According to them, to adapt to trends and because they believed it would be a marketing strategy people would love. However, the public response was the complete opposite. One of the most iconic brands, ringing in the holiday season. But take a closer look at the new Coca-Cola commercial, and you might notice that it was made with artificial intelligence, social media certainly caught whip. It shows how lifeless that Christmas commercial is. Coca-Cola just put out an ad and ruined Christmas and their entire brand. It's less festive, more creepy holiday vibes. The reason why this commercial was so hated, was not because it was made with AI, but because people felt it had lost a human touch they loved about this beverage. By the end of 2024, AI was already present almost everywhere, even in fast food chains. Companies like Taco Bell, McDonald's and Wendy's began implementing 100% AI customer service systems. It is estimated that that year companies tested these systems in nearly 64,000 locations. And the public reaction was immediate. And not only in fast food chains, several banks, companies and start-ups began routing customer service calls to AI chatbots. Bank of America, for example, implemented this type of autonomous agent, reaching millions of interactions per day. The financial company Klarna enthusiastically announced that its artificial intelligence chatbot could perform the equivalent work of 700 human agents and handle millions of customer conversations. However, shortly afterwards, the company acknowledged that the AI failed to understand complex situations, misinterpreted requests and generated user frustration. Forcing the company to rehire human staff to improve service quality. Even technology companies themselves began to see the consequences of AI adoption in their processes. In 2024, Google faced strong negative backlash when its Gemini chatbot began generating historically inaccurate images and biased responses. The problem became so serious that the company had to temporarily suspend the image generation feature. And co-founder Sergey Brin himself acknowledged that the system had not been adequately tested before its launch. This error affected public trust and even triggered a drop of more than $70 billion in the company's market value following the controversy. And these cases are not isolated. A study cited in 2025 found that up to 45% of responses generated by AI systems contained errors. Which explains why many tech companies began reconsidering how quickly they were integrating these tools into their processes. I spoke yesterday to Ramp CEO Eric Gleiman who told me that companies are trying these tools, they're not always working and so they're asking eventually where's the value. But people did not only begin to dislike AI's incorrect responses, but also its real world infrastructure. Since 2023, it is estimated that in the United States alone, companies like OpenAI and NVIDIA have invested up to $100 billion in building and expanding AI data centers. In Virginia, considered the world capital of data centers, there are more than 300 centers distributed across the region. In this region alone, these centers consumed nearly 2 billion gallons of water in 2023, a 63% increase since 2019. This not only depletes nearby residents' water sources, but also contaminates them. This is my cold water pressure in the kitchen. This is where I fill up water for storage. Those are the things we have to fill up to flush the toilets. So you can see the sediment from the data center. Wow, and that's just from the water coming out of your faucet? Yeah. And this is what's in our pipes. But the construction of these massive centers not only affects water quality, but also electricity. In the United States, these centers already consume more than 4% of the country's electricity. And this figure is projected to rise to 12% before 2028. In Virginia alone, these facilities consumed 25% of the state's electricity in 2025, a figure equivalent to the consumption of millions of homes. This has caused people living in nearby areas to see their electricity bills increase like never before. A recent analysis found that areas with high concentrations of data centers saw electricity prices rise by up to 267% over five years. When I noticed my electric bill gone up, I started asking my neighbors, is your bill also going up? And they had no idea that this was happening. If you live in any of these states, your electric bill is higher this summer. It's not because of anything you did. You're paying more because the world's biggest tech companies are building so many data centers. I do guess that a lot of the world gets covered in data centers over time. But I don't know. Is this something where we are committed to building our data centers across our 60 regions? We're absolutely going to. As if this were not enough, concerns about a potential economic bubble have also made people wary of this technology. It is estimated that AI investment reached a staggering figure of $1.5 trillion in 2025 alone. Most of this money has gone into investments in leading companies in the sector, such as NVIDIA, OpenAI, and Oracle. But what raises doubts about these transactions is that they are made circularly among the same companies. Additionally, considering that many of these investments are based on hypothetical or future returns, this has generated distrust on Wall Street. It is estimated that nearly 95% of AI projects funded by external investors do not even generate revenue, but instead produce daily multi-million dollar losses. A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that only 5% of generative AI projects implemented in companies managed to positively impact revenue. A clear example is OpenAI. Despite being one of the leading companies in the sector, it is estimated that it lost more than $12 billion in a single quarter and could accumulate more than $40 billion in annual losses by 2027. Despite Sam Altman making deals worth $1.4 trillion, the company is hemorrhaging money. He's tried everything to convert free users to paid, he locked GPT-40 behind a paywall, and he's severely limited the usage of the free tier. Nothing's working. All of this has caused public perception of AI to change drastically since its launch. A study by Pew Research Center revealed that 52% of Americans feel more concerned than excited about artificial intelligence. While only 10% reported being more excited than concerned, reflecting a significant shift in public opinion. Even overall trust in these technologies has begun to decline. A report from the Edelman Trust Barometer found that only 35% of people trust that artificial intelligence will be beneficial for society, while the majority expressed concerns related to job loss, misinformation, and environmental impact. Feelings though around AI do appear to be getting worse nationwide. You've got recent polls from both NBC News and Quinnipiac showing more than half of Americans now say the risk of AI outweighs the benefit. The tech they say, or at least according to these polls, will do more harm than good. In recent months, a concerning rise in attacks and hate speech directed at CEOs of artificial intelligence companies has been observed, reflecting growing social fear toward this technology. One of the most recent cases occurred in April 2026, when the home of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, was attacked with a Molotov cocktail by an individual claiming that AI represented a threat to humanity. Days later, shots were also fired at the same property, and authorities found a document with threats and names of other executives in the sector, raising alarms about potential additional attacks. We have new information on the firebomb attack on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's house in San Francisco. The suspect now faces multiple charges, including attempted murder. In one document titled, Your Last Warning, Moreno-Gama allegedly called for the deaths of other AI company CEOs and wrote, If I'm going to advocate for others to kill and commit crimes, then I must lead by example and show that I'm fully sincere in my message. And the criminal complaint also alleges he had another message for his intended victim. If by some miracle you live, then I will take this as a sign from the divine to redeem yourself. In just a few years, artificial intelligence went from being the most exciting promise in technology to becoming one of the most controversial. Today, while companies continue accelerating this technological race, more and more people are wondering whether we are truly building the future, or if we are moving too fast without understanding its consequences.