Every great technological revolution in human history has arrived with a promise: that the disruption it brings will ultimately serve humanity. The printing press. The steam engine. The internet. Each transformed the world. Each also generated profound anxiety, social friction and, in some cases, violence, before the benefits became broadly felt and broadly distributed.

We are living through that moment again. And the signals, if we are willing to read them clearly, are telling us something important.

The Booing and What It Means

This spring, two prominent technology figures were booed off graduation stages while attempting to speak about AI's transformative potential. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, mid-speech at the University of Arizona, pleaded with the crowd: "If you'd let me make this point, please." They would not. At UCF, speaker Gloria Caulfield faced the same response after describing AI as "the next industrial revolution".

These were not acts of ignorance. They were acts of expression, from some of the most educated young people in the country, at the very moment they were stepping into the future being built for them.

Polls illuminate what the booing expresses. The 2026 Stanford AI Index found that only 38% of Americans now view AI positively, the lowest in the report's history. Gallup found that just 18% of young Americans feel hopeful about AI. More than 70% of all Americans believe the technology is moving too fast. This view is shared across every political divide, 68% of Republicans and 77% of Democrats agree.

What these numbers describe is not technophobia. They describe a civilisation asking, with increasing urgency: for whom is this revolution being built?

When Anxiety Becomes Action

The question has, in isolated but significant cases, moved from the polling booth to the street.

In April 2026, a city councillor in Indianapolis who voted to approve a data centre rezoning returned home to find 13 bullet holes in his house and a note reading "NO DATA CENTERS." Days later, a man allegedly threw a molotov cocktail at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's home, then allegedly threatened to destroy OpenAI's headquarters. The accused has pleaded not guilty to charges including attempted murder. On social media, thousands of people applauded the attack.

These acts cannot be condoned. But they can, and must, be understood. Yannick Veilleux-Lepage, a researcher who studies technology and political violence, wrote that AI "generates the structural conditions historically associated with the onset of political violence. "The Soufan Center, a nonpartisan security research organisation, has documented a rising pattern of direct threats against individuals, policymakers, and corporations involved with AI , with physical sabotage of data centres among the most commonly expressed intentions.

History offers a context. The Luddites of early 19th-century England are remembered as opponents of progress. What is less remembered is that they were skilled craftspeople watching their livelihoods destroyed, their communities fractured, and their concerns dismissed while factory owners accumulated unprecedented wealth. The machines were not the only problem. Inflation, food scarcity, and economic inequality made automation the focal point of a much broader human crisis.

The parallel to our present moment is uncomfortable and worth sitting with.

The Infrastructure of Discontent

The physical flashpoint of today's resistance is the data centre — the vast, energy-hungry facilities that AI requires to function. At least 70 communities across the United States imposed restrictions on or rejected data centre projects between 2021 and early 2026. A record number of planned projects were cancelled in Q1 2026 alone. Maine passed the country's first statewide data center moratorium. At least 12 other states have filed similar legislation.

In Festus, Missouri, voters removed every city councillor who had approved a $6 billion data center. In Port Washington, Wisconsin, residents passed what is reportedly the country's first referendum requiring public approval before tax incentives can be granted for such projects. A community guide titled "How to Stop a Data Center," produced in Michigan, circulated widely, detailing how organised local action can halt projects that have been approved without genuine community consent.

Morgan Stanley warned clients that "public pushback is emerging as a binding constraint" on AI infrastructure. Jefferies told investors these community battles were "sapping confidence" in the sector.

What communities are resisting is not AI itself. They are resisting being asked to bear the costs, higher energy bills, water depletion, noise, environmental impact, while the benefits flow primarily to shareholders of trillion-dollar corporations hundreds of miles away.

The Wisdom Gap

The current backlash against AI is, at its heart, a wisdom gap: between the speed of technological development and the depth of human and institutional understanding needed to guide it well.

Stanford law professor Nathaniel Persily captured the sentiment of many: "Disruption has winners and losers. For many Americans, they're not convinced they're going to be the winners, and they base that conclusion on the history of technology over the last 20 years."

One poll found that the group most optimistic about AI in their daily lives are households earning over $200,000 a year. Among those earning under $50,000, 56% fear AI will replace jobs their families depend on. The gap between who captures the gains of AI and who absorbs its disruptions is not a communications problem. It is a structural one and it will not be resolved by better messaging.

The AI industry is aware of this, to a degree. Anthropic committed $200 million with the Gates Foundation for programmes in health, education, and agriculture in lower-income countries. OpenAI struck a deal with Malta to give every citizen free access to its tools following an AI literacy programme. George Osborne, heading OpenAI's countries initiative, declared, "Intelligence is becoming a national utility and all governments have an important role to play."

These are meaningful steps. But as The Atlantic observed, if the industry believes that messaging adjustments alone will resolve the backlash, "they are misunderstanding the problem entirely."

What the Revolution Requires

Every revolution worth the name has had to earn its legitimacy, not through declaration, but through demonstrated benefit to the many, not just the few. The AI revolution is at an early and critical juncture in that process.

The historical record is neither pessimistic nor optimistic on this point. The Industrial Revolution did ultimately generate extraordinary wealth and improve living standards but not before decades of genuine suffering for those who bore its costs first. The question before us is not whether AI will transform the world. It will. The question is whether that transformation can happen with wisdom, with genuine attention to distribution, consent, community impact, and human dignity, or whether it will proceed as so many previous revolutions have: over the objections of those it disrupts, with the benefits arriving, if at all, a generation too late.

The booing at graduation ceremonies, the referendums blocking data centres, the rising anxiety in the polls, these are not obstacles to the AI revolution. They are its most important feedback signal. And wisdom, as history has always taught us, begins with the willingness to listen.