The Great AI Backlash: Why 2026 Is the Year the Honeymoon Ended
Oracle just cut 21,000 jobs citing AI. Nearly half of Americans want a moratorium on data centers. OpenAI killed Sora. From job displacement to energy costs to nuclear fears, the public mood has flipped. But is the backlash fair — or are we panicking?

The Debate
Remember when AI was going to cure cancer, write our novels, and hand us a four-day weekend? Somewhere between the ChatGPT launch and Oracle cutting 21,000 employees in a single year, the narrative flipped. Hard.
The central question of 2026 is no longer "How fast can we deploy AI?" It's "How do we slow this thing down before it costs us everything?" Nearly half of Americans now support a moratorium on new data center construction, according to fresh polling from Milltown...