June 29, 2026

Of Bulls and Bears and AI

My LinkedIn feed is now about 90% AI related posts. It's probably fair to say that folks on LI are pretty bullish about AI.

My AI agent sends me daily news feeds about tech, AI, science, etc. As an experiment, I asked it to run a job to pull 10 tech articles from the previous day that are unrelated to AI. It's a rare day that it can find even 8 articles.

So I think it is also fair to say that most folks have heard about AI.

The thing is, many of these folks are not excited about it at all. The bears are hibernating, and they don't appear to want to come out of their caves anytime soon.

Some recent data:

  • 64% of Americans expect AI to lead to fewer jobs over 20 years; only 5% expect more jobs - https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report/public-opinion
  • 50% of U.S. adults feel more concerned than excited about AI in daily life — up from 37% in 2021 — https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/03/12/key-findings-about-how-americans-view-artificial-intelligence/
  • Only 23% of Americans think AI will have a positive impact on jobs vs. 73% of AI experts — a 50-point gap — https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report/public-opinion

The last one is a doozy. Are we reading the room at all?

Personally, I think AI is a massive game-changer. If adoption is any indicator, then this is probably a reasonable stance, as global AI adoption is approximately 53% in just 3 years, which is faster than PCs or the Internet. (https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report/economy)

I talk to a lot of families and small businesses about AI in my work, so I get a chance to see these reactions firsthand. Some folks are afraid, for sure, but many others are just curious, as they don't know much about it. But I think we could easily swing to the "OMG this is the worst thing ever" majority stance if anything goes sideways (an agent causes major damage, like taking down a power grid or a hospital, or we start to see huge job losses due to AI).

With that said, I think it behooves early adopters to be kind and caring with other folks when we talk about AI. Listen to their fears, and understand them. Help them overcome their fears, if you can. Think about how AI can be an agent for good, and not evil. (It is, after all, just another tool made by humans -- but so are machine guns, and nuclear weapons). Push back in areas where AI is overreaching or shouldn't dabble (for me, that is the arts—this is a slippery slope that I think will lead to bad things). Be an ambassador, but also be a skeptic.

But don't be afraid, because fear is the mind-killer.