It is the early morning of April 11,

2026, and the tech world is left in

shock after hearing this news.

>> The founder of Open AI under attack

today after police say somebody threw a

Molotov cocktail at Sam Alman's home.

>> But just a couple of days later, another

worse incident was making headlines.

>> Another violent incident in the

neighborhood where Open AI CEO Sam Alman

lives. Two people are charged with

firing gunshots there on Sunday. What

was interesting about this was the

apparent motive behind these attacks.

Police say they also found Mareno Gama's

writings which show disturbing

viewpoints opposed to AI. In one

document titled Your Last Warning,

Mareno Gama allegedly called for the

deaths of other AI company CEOs. But

beyond this incident, in general,

acceptance of AI is rapidly declining.

From data center bans to plummeting

public perception, AI companies are

facing increasing backlash ahead of what

could be historic public debuts.

>> Recent surveys estimate that nearly 70%

of Americans have developed a negative

perception of AI. Some of the reasons

have been the displacement of jobs it

has caused.

>> We're also following breaking news out

of the tech world tonight that you may

have heard about. Amazon set to announce

massive layoffs. Google, Intel, and now

San Francisco's Oracle, as well as

Salesforce making cuts to their

workforce. It seems only fitting to be

pointing the finger at AI,

>> even its ecological impacts and effects

on natural resources.

>> Our public health is not for sale.

>> Across the US, a frenzy of development

to support the artificial intelligence

boom prompts push back from communities

who say they don't want data centers in

their backyards. But the question is, if

AI promised to be the technology of the

future, how did we get here?

To understand this, we need to go back a

few years. November 30, 2022 marked a

before and after in the history of

modern technology. That day, Chat GPT

was publicly launched, a chatbot

developed by OpenAI that within days

began generating unprecedented

excitement. What initially seemed like

just another tool within the broad

technological world quickly became one

of the fastest growing consumer products

in history. In just two months, Chat GPT

reached 100 million monthly active

users. An absolute record that surpassed

the growth of platforms like Tik Tok,

which took 9 months, and Instagram,

which needed more than 2 years to reach

the same figure. This explosive growth

not only captured the attention of the

general public but also sparked alarm

and interest among major tech companies.

Silicon Valley, Wall Street and

practically the entire digital industry

began to see artificial intelligence as

the next great economic revolution and

above all a way to make enormous amounts

of money.

>> The big banks are getting in on AI. JP

Morgan's Jamie Diamond telling Bloomberg

that the benefits of AI are huge, but

warning that some workers could lose

their jobs to it.

>> For example, Microsoft invested billions

of dollars in open AI. Google

accelerated the development of its own

models and a wave of startups emerged

with the promise of putting AI into all

kinds of products and services. In

December 2023, Google launched its

Gemini model as a direct response to

growing competition, while Anthropic

introduced Claude with a focus on safety

and enterprise performance. During that

year, the promise of all tech companies

was that artificial intelligence was not

only the future, but that this future

had arrived earlier than expected, and

business adoption was immediate. As

tools for generating text, images,

video, and code began appearing at a

dizzying pace. Technology companies

fiercely competed to launch the next big

model. Each promising to be more

powerful, more accurate, and more

revolutionary than the last. However, as

the speed of development increased, so

did the problems. Tonight, the urgent

warning from a top AI executive, Daario

Amode. But tonight, he's out with a new

essay for everyone, warning that future

AI tech could pose a real danger to

civilization as we know it. Just as

companies began adopting AI at scale,

mass layoffs also grew at the same pace

and not only in the tech sector. From

the finance sector to law firms,

everyone wanted a piece of what promised

to be a tool to exponentially increase

profits while reducing costs at the same

rate. It is estimated that since 2023,

more than 120,000 jobs have been

replaced by AI across all sectors.

>> Massive job cuts at Amazon. Overnight,

the company announcing it'll eliminate

approximately 14,000 roles. This is the

largest corporate layoff of the year,

one of the largest in Amazon's history.

>> This caused people to begin seeing AI

not as a tool, but as a direct threat to

their jobs. A survey revealed that

nearly 90% of workers laid off due to AI

worsened their perception of this

technology. But the backlash against AI

was not only growing among those who

lost their jobs, but also among the

general public. In 2024, Coca-Cola

launched a commercial made 100% with AI.

According to them, to adapt to trends

and because they believed it would be a

marketing strategy people would love.

However, the public response was the

complete opposite. One of the most

iconic brands ringing in the holiday

season. But take a closer look at the

new Coca-Cola commercial and you might

notice that it was made with artificial

intelligence. Social media certainly

caught whiff.

>> It shows how lifeless that Christmas

commercial is. Coca-Cola just put out an

ad and ruined Christmas and their entire

brand.

>> It's less festive, more creepy holiday

vibes. The reason why this commercial

was so hated was not because it was made

with AI, but because people felt it had

lost the human touch they loved about

this beverage. By the end of 2024, AI

was already present almost everywhere,

even in fast food chains. Companies like

Taco Bell, McDonald's, and Wendy's began

implementing 100% AI customer service

systems. It is estimated that that year,

companies tested these systems in nearly

64,000 locations. And the public

reaction was immediate.

>> McDonald's is pulling the plug on its

experimental use of artificial

intelligence. The fast food giant was

looking to use AI to simplify and

expedite its drive-thru experience. The

technology was deployed at about 100 US

locations, but there were some issues

that left customers pretty frustrated.

>> And not only in fast food chains,

several banks, companies, and startups

began rooting customer service calls to

AI chat bots. Bank of America, for

example, implemented this type of

autonomous agent, reaching millions of

interactions per day. The financial

company Cler enthusiastically announced

that its artificial intelligence chatbot

could perform the equivalent work of 700

human agents and handle millions of

customer conversations. However, shortly

afterwards, the company acknowledged

that the AI failed to understand complex

situations, misinterpreted requests, and

generated user frustration. forcing the

company to rehire human staff to improve

service quality.

>> I don't know if either of you two have

interacted with an AI chatbot customer

service thing, but it is a nightmare.

Remember those old phone trees? You call

a customer service line and you have to

like slam on this zero button in order

to get a human being to talk to you.

There's no zero button with these. It's

like you cannot get what you want. Long

story short, I was stuck in like a

chatbot death loop of like trying to get

it to do what I want. Eventually, I had

to, you know what, pick up a phone and

call a human being.

>> Even technology companies themselves

began to see the consequences of AI

adoption in their processes. In 2024,

Google faced strong negative backlash

when its Gemini chatbot began generating

historically inaccurate images and

biased responses. The problem became so

serious that the company had to

temporarily suspend the image generation

feature and co-founder Sergey Brin

himself acknowledged that the system had

not been adequately tested before its

launch. This error affected public trust

and even triggered a drop of more than

$70 billion in the company's market

value following the controversy. And

these cases are not isolated. A study

cited in 2025 found that up to 45% of

responses generated by AI systems

contained errors, which explains why

many tech companies began reconsidering

how quickly they were integrating these

tools into their processes.

>> Now, I spoke yesterday to RAM CEO Eric

Lyman, who told me that companies are

trying these tools. They're not always

working, and so they're asking

eventually, where's the value? But

people did not only begin to dislike

AI's incorrect responses, but also its

realworld infrastructure. Since 2023, it

is estimated that in the United States

alone, companies like OpenAI and Nvidia

have invested up to hundred billion

dollars in building and expanding AI

data centers. In Virginia, considered

the world capital of data centers, there

are more than 300 centers distributed

across the region. In this region alone,

these centers consumed nearly 2 billion

gallons of water in 2023, a 63% increase

since 2019. This not only depletes

nearby residents water sources, but also

contaminates them.

>> This is my cold water pressure in the

kitchen.

This is where I fill up water for

storage. Those are the things we have to

fill up to flush the toilets. So you can

see the sediment from the data center.

>> Wow. And that's just from the water

coming out of your faucet.

>> Yeah.

>> And this is what's in our pipes.

>> But the construction of these massive

centers not only affects water quality,

but also electricity. In the United

States, these centers already consume

more than 4% of the country's

electricity. And this figure is

projected to rise to 12% before 2028. In

Virginia alone, these facilities consume

25% of the state's electricity in 2025,

a figure equivalent to the consumption

of millions of homes. This has caused

people living in nearby areas to see

their electricity bills increase like

never before. A recent analysis found

that areas with high concentrations of

data centers saw electricity prices rise

by up to 267%

over 5 years. When I've noticed my

electric bill gone up, started asking my

neighbors, is your bill still going up?

And they had no idea that this was

happening.

>> If you live in any of these states, your

electric bill is higher this summer.

It's not because of anything you did.

You're paying more because the world's

biggest tech companies are building so

many data centers.

>> I do guess that a lot of the world gets

covered in data centers over time. But I

don't know cuz maybe put them in space.

Is this something where we are committed

to building out data centers across our

60 regions? We are absolutely going to.

>> As if this were not enough, concerns

about a potential economic bubble have

also made people wary of this

technology. It is estimated that AI

investment reached a staggering figure

of $1.5 trillion in 2025 alone. Most of

this money has gone into investments in

leading companies in the sector such as

Nvidia, OpenAI, and Oracle. But what

raises doubts about these transactions

is that they are made circularly among

the same companies. Additionally,

considering that many of these

investments are based on hypothetical or

future returns, this has generated

distrust on Wall Street. It is estimated

that nearly 95% of AI projects funded by

external investors do not even generate

revenue, but instead produce daily

multi-million dollar losses. A study

from the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology found that only 5% of

generative AI projects implemented in

companies managed to positively impact

revenue. A clear example is Open AI.

Despite being one of the leading

companies in the sector, it is estimated

that it lost more than $12 billion in a

single quarter and could accumulate more

than $40 billion in annual losses by

2027.

>> Despite Sam Alman making deals worth

$1.4 $4 trillion. The company is

hemorrhaging money. He's tried

everything to convert free users to

paid. He locked GPT40 behind a payw wall

and he's severely limited the usage of

the free tier. Nothing's working. All of

this has caused public perception of AI

to change drastically since its launch.

A study by Pew Research Center revealed

that 52% of Americans feel more

concerned than excited about artificial

intelligence, while only 10% reported

being more excited than concerned,

reflecting a significant shift in public

opinion. Even overall trust in these

technologies has begun to decline. A

report from the Edomman Trust Barometer

found that only 35% of people trust that

artificial intelligence will be

beneficial for society. While the

majority expressed concerns related to

job loss, misinformation, and

environmental impact,

>> feelings though around AI do appear to

be getting worse nationwide. You've got

recent polls from both NBC News and

Quinnipiac showing more than half of

Americans now say the risk of AI

outweighs the benefit the tech they say

or at least according to these polls

will do more harm than good.

>> In recent months, a concerning rise in

attacks and hate speech directed at CEOs

of artificial intelligence companies has

been observed reflecting growing social

fear toward this technology. One of the

most recent cases occurred in April 2026

when the home of Sam Olman, CEO of

OpenAI, was attacked with a Molotov

cocktail by an individual claiming that

AI represented a threat to humanity.

Days later, shots were also fired at the

same property, and authorities found a

document with threats and names of other

executives in the sector, raising alarms

about potential additional attacks. We

have new information on the firebomb

attack on OpenAI CEO Sam Alman's house

in San Francisco. The suspect now faces

multiple charges, including attempted

murder.

>> In one document titled, "Your last

warning," Mareno Gama allegedly called

for the deaths of other AI company CEOs

and wrote, "If I'm going to advocate for

others to kill and commit crimes, then I

must lead by example and show that I'm

fully sincere in my message." And the

criminal complaint also alleges he had

another message for his intended victim.

If by some miracle you live, then I

would take this as a sign from the

divine to redeem yourself. In just a few

years, artificial intelligence went from

being the most exciting promise in

technology to becoming one of the most

controversial. Today, while companies

continue accelerating this technological

race, more and more people are wondering

whether we are truly building the future

or if we are moving too fast without

understanding its consequences.

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