Do Not Fear AI. Fear AI Companies.

Summary

This opinion essay argues that the public should distinguish artificial intelligence from the companies building, distributing, and controlling it. It begins with the anxiety created by AI-generated media, conversational systems, workplace layoffs attributed to AI, and the resulting difficulty of trusting text, images, and video. The author then criticizes AI companies for warning that their systems are dangerous while presenting themselves as the institutions capable of governing those risks. In the author’s view, claims about self-improvement and uncontrolled failures can obscure the role of company-provided compute, tools, data, and objectives, as well as the fact that companies can restrict or disable those resources. The essay portrays the industry as competing to become the gatekeeper of a new walled garden, with artificial employees rented as a service and with concentrated power over work and daily life. It argues that workers are encouraged to accept four ideas: AI is inevitable, job displacement is unavoidable, only companies possess the expertise to control the technology, and continued use of their services is necessary. The author connects this strategy to lobbying, favorable policy, robotics, data extraction, and the training of systems with users’ interactions. The proposed response is collective and individual resistance: reduce reliance on company tools, support authentic in-person relationships and human-created work, challenge corporate customers, and organize through protest, art, writing, and labor action. The article does not present empirical evidence or a specific policy program; it is a political argument urging readers to reject inevitability and focus accountability on AI companies.