A woman holds a placard during a nationwide protest against AI data center expansion in front of the Peace Hall in New Port Richey, Florida, on July 18, 2026.
Thomas Simonetti | Thomas Simonetti AFP | Getty Images
Silicon Valley technology leaders have long dreamed of making the world a better place. But now, more than ever, Americans say they are living in a technological nightmare.
The rapid rise of artificial intelligence giants like OpenAI and Anthropic has exacerbated a deep malaise with the tech sector, especially among people who have come to associate AI with unemployment and now see giant data centers erected in their backyards. On the other hand, the last generation of technology brought us a series of social media apps that have proven to be highly addictive. meta agreed this week to pay up to $17 billion as part of a landmark settlement.
Amid high inflation with consumer confidence at a seven-month low, Americans are looking to see trillion-dollar tech companies, led by some of the wealthiest people on the planet, grow bigger and more powerful.
“If this technology becomes widespread in the way that the AI Labs CEOs are talking about, we’re going to be facing significant impacts to our economy, jobs, and agency,” Sarah Myers West, co-executive director of the research firm AI Now Institute, told CNBC in an interview. “There are a lot of members of the public who don’t want to see that vision unfold.”
A recent Pew Research Center report found that more than half of Americans say they are more concerned than excited about the growing use of AI in their daily lives. This is up from 37% in 2021. And a poll earlier this year found that an overwhelming majority of voters believe social media is having a negative impact on society.
Trust in AI executives is even more dire, according to a CNBC Generation Lab survey of 18- to 34-year-olds. More than 75% of respondents said they did not trust Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to act responsibly, while about 70% of respondents said the same about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The public’s growing disdain for the tech sector could be particularly difficult for Anthropic and OpenAI, both of which have market capitalizations of nearly $1 trillion and are preparing for what could be historic IPOs. These products have the potential to create many new millionaires and billionaires. As CNBC previously reported, an AI rebound is expected to emerge as a key risk factor in Anthropic’s IPO prospectus.
In a post on X earlier this month, Amodei acknowledged the general public’s negative views of AI and said Anthropic and other companies must deliver on their promise to improve people’s lives.
“I believe this is fundamentally a crisis of trust,” Amodei wrote. “I think the public doesn’t trust businesses, governments, and the tech industry, and they’re always suspicious that we’re inventing some new way to screw with them. The roots of this go back decades, and AI is just the latest iteration of that.”
Experts told CNBC that the backlash against the tech industry has reached new heights, with the conversation being drowned out by widespread anxiety about the potential benefits, especially around AI. Companies need to go beyond the charm offensive, they say.
“It’s very misguided to treat this as a PR issue or a public sentiment issue,” West said. “To improve public sentiment, we need to have meaningful discussions about where people are and what they want, in ways that are more meaningful than just, ‘Can we convince them to join?'”
“I don’t have much trust.”
AI data centers, large facilities that house the hardware for training and running AI models, have become a particularly poignant topic and a physical manifestation of widespread anger against AI.
In the first quarter of this year, approximately $130 billion worth of data center projects were blocked or delayed due to local opposition, according to a report from Data Center Watch. In just three months, this figure has approached the roughly $156 billion worth of facilities shut down through 2025.
As backlash against the facilities grows, groups like the Stop Data Centers Coalition are calling for a national moratorium on new projects to give lawmakers and the public time to better examine their environmental, social and economic impacts.
Food and Water Watch organizing director Emily Wirth said concerns about data centers cut across a number of issues, including water use, rising utility costs, increased emissions, noise pollution and the potential for the facilities to “take over agricultural land.”
She said she saw “hundreds of people coming together to speak out and oppose these projects” in parts of Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
“It probably caught businesses and legislators off guard,” she said.
Aerial view of Amazon Web Services data center in Stone Ridge, Virginia, August 26, 2026.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images
The anger spilled over to employees in the tech industry. Amazon The engineers testified before the Seattle City Council in June, calling for stronger government regulation of AI data centers and criticizing the company for using “dirty energy” at some of its sites.
“Given the rise in electricity prices that we’ve seen over the last few years, trust in utility companies and regulators is not necessarily high,” James Coleman, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, said in an interview with CNBC.
Emotions are not always negative. “Many labor unions are pro-data centers, not just because of the initial construction boom, but also for electricians and HVAC professionals, who will be in high demand ‘post-construction,'” Jennifer Huddleston, senior technology policy fellow at the Cato Institute, said in an interview.
The so-called hyperscalers responsible for much of the construction boom are responding to insatiable business and consumer demand for their services, and many say they are enabling important advances in areas such as medical research and precision agriculture.
Still, with this year’s midterm elections just two months away, opposition to data centers has become a major flashpoint. Democratic and Republican candidates have spoken out against the facility during the campaign.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) warned that data centers have become a “significant issue” throughout the midterm election period, according to a memo obtained by CNBC earlier this month.
Social media attracts attention
Jim Steyer, CEO of the nonprofit Common Sense Media, said bipartisan opposition to the technology goes beyond data centers. He said Americans are “sick and tired” of the actions of many big tech companies.
“There’s a real technology clash going on, but it’s not partisan at all,” Steyer’s brother Tom, a Democratic candidate for California governor, said in an interview with CNBC. “It doesn’t matter if you’re liberal or conservative, if you vote Republican or Democrat, or what part of the country you live in. It’s everywhere.”
The lawsuit, which Meta settled this week, was brought by a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general who alleged that Meta was putting children and teens at risk on social media apps like Instagram and Facebook. As part of the settlement, the company agreed to make significant changes to its products in addition to paying billions of dollars in penalties.
Meta has agreed to impose changes such as a default two-hour daily time limit for teens on Facebook and Instagram, muting notifications during school hours, and increased parental controls, with more updates likely.
“This is conceptually a floor, not a ceiling,” Rob Bonta of the California Attorney General’s Office, co-leader of the case, said at a press conference Wednesday.
Steyer said the settlement was overdue but a “deserved victory” and reflected widespread public sentiment. He added that the backlash against technology is at its strongest since he founded Common Sense more than 20 years ago.
It’s a “qualitatively different moment in terms of reaction,” Steyer said. “If I were the owner of a large company, I would be very aware of that.”
Then there’s the issue of surveillance and Atlanta startup Flock Safety.
Flock’s technology, which photographs every license plate it passes and uses AI to extract the data, is deployed in thousands of American cities and towns. Critics claim that police are using the cameras to stalk women and falsely accuse them of crimes.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle are calling for stricter regulations ahead of the midterm elections. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive Democrat running for the Michigan Senate, posted videos on X earlier this month, accusing Republican Mike Rogers of enabling their spread.
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose term ends in January, said this week that the system is “out of control.” President Donald Trump said his stance toward cameras is “under consideration.”
So far this year, more than 90 cities have revoked, rejected or canceled their Flock contracts, according to DeFlock, an advocacy group that tracks the rollout of the Flock system.
Flock has not issued a statement on the matter.
Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the impact “folds neatly into” resentment about AI, data centers and the power of tech billionaires.
“I think there’s a long-standing, grassroots, bipartisan suspicion about this type of surveillance,” he said.
—CNBC’s Annie Palmer and CJ Haddad contributed to this report
WATCH: Tusk Venture’s Bradley Tusk talks about what data centers need to do to earn trust
