People keep using the word "irrational" when describing the general public's opposition to AI. That word has meaning. Let's start with the colloquial: making consistent decisions against one's best interests given information that one has. What is the current information people have? On the one hand, they have the chatbots. For most people, they are fun and sometimes helpful on the margin. Adoption in consequential contexts has been spotty and surveys show very mixed attitudes in those settings (see 2025 BCG survey). On the other hand, you have the heads of almost every AI company saying that AI will 1) lead to *huge* job losses and 2) potentially much much worse. There is some vague hand waving about curing cancer or going to space, but the main message is "it is coming for your job and your life". Putting the two together, you get exactly what you see in the data: "I like these chatbots, but I do not like AI and I do not want it to get better or expand." This is not a contradiction. The former refers to the current chatbots that people ask random questions, the latter represents the thing that everyone in power tells them will take their jobs. The response in DC and the coasts has been: you don't know what's good for you, move out of the way, you're stupid and irrational. How has that response worked out the last 15 years? If those who see the positives, the huge potential benefits of AI to grow the pie and make life better for all (which includes myself), do not take this political economy into account, I'm afraid that the populist wave of the last decade will look like child's play. A dress rehearsal.