This is why AI is stressing you out

Explaining the AI vibe shift

Over the last few months – maybe even weeks – you might have felt something change. You can’t precisely say what it is. But there is certainly a mood shift. All those terrifying projections people were making ten years ago about ‘AI taking over’ and ‘AI jobs apocalypse’ don’t sound so crazy any more.

You would not be alone feeling nervous. A Pew survey from April 2025 found a majority of US adults are now ‘more worried than excited’ about AI. (In December 2022 that number was just 38 per cent). An Ipsos Mori poll from earlier this month found 66 per cent of adults in Anglophone countries now feel nervous about AI.

In my experience, this is less any specific worry about jobs or AI slop or deep fake scams or democratic meltdown. Rather it’s a visceral reaction – that it’s all too much, too quickly.

This is a perfectly sensible reaction.

First, consider the adoption curve. Technology adoption tends to follow an S-curve.

There are a small number of early adopters, followed by a sharp upward bend, before flattening out again as the market saturates. But with our modern technology obsessed society, the S-curve is shaped more like a hockey stick.

And the speed and altitude of the hockey stick is speeding up with every new wave of invention.

It took the television several decades to reach a billion users. It took smartphones just under twenty. Facebook got there in just under nine; and TikTok managed it in around five.

On current projections, ChatGPT will reach that landmark in around 2 and-a-half years. It’s already well past halfway. Which, I guess, would make ChatGPT the fastest adopted product of all time.