Another Crazy Day in AI: Why Some People Will Always Oppose AI
- Mar 19
- 4 min read
Hello, AI Enthusiasts.
Here's another crazy day in AI:
The moral case against AI (that isn't really about AI)
Montana State is hosting a full-day AI event
New full-stack vibe coding now in Google AI Studio
Some AI tools to try out
🎧 Listen to a quick breakdown of today’s stories.
TODAY'S FEATURED ITEM: What the Data Says About Why People Reject AI
Image Credit: Wowza (created with Ideogram)
What would it take for your view on AI — whatever it is — to actually change?
A new preprint from researchers at the University of Toronto takes a hard look at why so many people resist AI — and finds the answer may be less rational than we think. The research was designed and led by Victoria Oldemburgo de Mello, Reem Ayad, and Éloïse Côté, with support from Yoel Inbar, Jason Plaks, and Michael Inzlicht (who also funded the project). Inzlicht, a psychologist and a professor at the University of Toronto, shared the findings on X with a straightforward observation: when you address someone's reason for opposing AI, a new reason tends to appear. And then another. At some point, he wrote, you're not watching someone think — you're watching someone feel.
It's called The Moralization of Artificial Intelligence, and it takes a hard look at why so many people resist AI even when the practical objections don't quite hold up. Across four studies, including an analysis of nearly 70,000 news headlines and surveys of representative American samples, the team arrived at a finding that may be less obvious than it sounds: for a significant portion of the population, opposition to AI isn't primarily a practical stance. It's a moral one.
A few things the research turned up:
Analyzing nearly 70,000 AI-related news headlines from 2018 to 2024, the team found that AI was being discussed in moral terms at levels comparable to GMOs and vaccines. The sharpest spike in moral language came within weeks of ChatGPT's launch in November 2022.
Among Americans who opposed AI, the majority said their views would stay the same even if AI were proven safe and broadly beneficial — a pattern researchers call "consequence insensitivity," which tends to appear when opposition is rooted in values rather than a practical reading of risks and benefits.
Moral attitudes across four AI applications — art generation, chatbots, legal tools, and romantic companions — all traced back to a single underlying factor. The resistance was broad and consistent, not a series of separate objections to separate things.
That stance showed up in actual behavior. Higher moralization scores corresponded to a 42% drop in actual AI usage, even when using AI would have directly benefited the person — and the effect held up over 573 days.
Public debates around AI tend to focus on what the technology can or can't do. This research suggests that for some people, that framing may be missing the point entirely. When opposition is rooted in values, the conversation probably needs to go somewhere different than a list of features and improvements.
There's a long history of new technologies running into moral resistance before they become ordinary. Whether AI follows that same path, or whether this particular wave of opposition is something different, is genuinely hard to say at this point. What the research does make clear is that understanding why people resist something matters just as much as understanding what they're resisting.
Read the full preprint here.
OTHER INTERESTING AI HIGHLIGHTS:
Montana State Is Hosting A Full-Day AI Event
/Skip Anderson, (Communications Specialist), on MSU News Service
A growing number of universities are turning AI into a campus-wide conversation—and not just in computer science labs. Montana State University is hosting a full-day symposium to explore how AI is shaping everything from agriculture and quantum tech to communication and the arts. The event brings together experts across disciplines to examine both the opportunities and real-world challenges of AI in education. It’s a reminder that understanding AI today requires more than just technical knowledge—it’s a cross-industry effort.
Read more here.
New Full-Stack Vibe Coding Now In Google AI Studio
/Google AI Studio's Product & Design Lead, Ammaar Reshi, and Product Manager, Kat Kampf, on Google Blogs – The Keyword
Building apps with AI is starting to feel a lot more like… just describing what you want. Google AI Studio’s upgraded “vibe coding” experience now lets you turn prompts into fully functional, production-ready apps—complete with multiplayer features, databases, and user authentication. With the new Antigravity coding agent and built-in Firebase integration, developers can go from idea to deployment without jumping between tools. It’s a big step toward making full-stack development faster, more accessible, and a lot more intuitive.
Check it out here.
SOME AI TOOLS TO TRY OUT:
That’s a wrap on today’s Almost Daily craziness.
Catch us almost every day—almost! 😉
EXCITING NEWS:
The Another Crazy Day in AI newsletter is on LinkedIn!!!
Leveraging AI for Enhanced Content: As part of our commitment to exploring new technologies, we used AI to help curate and refine our newsletters. This enriches our content and keeps us at the forefront of digital innovation, ensuring you stay informed with the latest trends and developments.
Comments