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The Backlash Is Real. The Money Has Been Spent.
The backlash is real
America has turned on AI, and fast. I teach it, I build with it, and I make videos about it. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
The numbers are hard to argue with. In a May 2026 Gallup poll, 71% of Americans opposed an AI data center in their area, and nearly half were strongly opposed (poll compilation). More than 70% told Economist/YouGov that AI is moving too fast (Axios). Only 18% of Americans aged 14 to 29 feel hopeful about it. Commencement speakers who praised AI got booed.
The reasons are not silly. People see higher power bills, water fights, jobs at risk, and a technology that looks built to make rich companies richer. Those concerns are earned. Anyone pushing AI who waves them off as "doom" is part of the problem.
So here's my position up front: the backlash is real, it's mostly fair, and it doesn't change what a smart small-business owner should do next.
The money has been spent
Whatever the public thinks, the buildout is done deciding. Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta planned about $725 billion in 2026 capital spending, up 77% from 2025 (FT via ResultSense). By the third quarter, the big spenders were tracking toward $800 billion or more for the year, with more promised for 2027 (Business Insider via HL).
That money is poured into concrete, power lines and chips. It will not be un-spent. And the giants are feeling it: Amazon's free cash flow fell from $26 billion to about $1 billion in a year (Om Malik).
We've seen this movie. In the late 1990s, telecom companies laid far more fiber than anyone needed, and many went bankrupt. Then the leftovers became the cheap backbone for YouTube, Netflix and broadband (KKR). Mark Cuban now makes the same comparison about AI data centers (24/7 Wall St.).
There's one big difference. Fiber lasts decades; AI chips wear out in a few years. So the little guy won't inherit cheap hardware. He inherits something better: four giants with huge bills, all fighting for his usage. That means free tiers, falling prices and tools that run in a browser.
The system can't keep up
The two institutions that should be teaching people to use what's been built are moving too slowly.
Schools. Most K-12 schools are already behind on AI, Education Week reports (EdWeek). Policy takes years to write, and the tools change every few months. Students feel the gap. As one high school AI club president put it, most students aren't trying to cheat; they're trying to keep up (Parents Press).
Small business. Seven in ten small-business owners say they need more AI training (Thryv survey). A small shop has no IT department and no training budget. Nobody is coming to retool it.
So it has to happen from the ground up. That's what the camps are for: short, hands-on, cheap, and built on whatever works this month. Grassroots can move at the speed of the tools; institutions can't.
Meet Erik
Erik the Coder doesn't read polls. He has a side hustle helping small businesses imagine what AI could do for them, then actually adopt it. He works on a Chromebook and watches every dollar, because his clients do too.
Every community has an Erik. He's active in the local Chamber of Commerce, knows the shop owners, sits in on the school tech meetings and keeps up with the tools. He's where business, technology and education meet. When the local bakery or the plumber down the street wonders about AI, he's who they call. He isn't asking whether AI is popular. He's asking whether it pays, for them.
I get to play with AI: poker bots, training camps, experiments that may go nowhere. Erik doesn't have that luxury. Every hour he spends has to come back as a client, a saved cost or a better product for someone he's helping.
So in Camp-9 we took one of my playful ideas and ran it the way Erik would. We planned a project, designed it together, built it with AI on a Chromebook, fixed what broke, and ran a tournament. The project was a poker game with AI dogs. The real lesson was that one person, on cheap hardware, can build working software in days.
Why the backlash is Erik's opening
To a businessman, a backlash is a signal. When most people back away from something, the few who learn it get the advantage.
- Most of his market hasn't started. Goldman Sachs found 76% of small businesses use AI somehow, but only 14% have built it into how they actually run (Goldman Sachs). The smallest shops lag most: under 20% of firms with four or fewer employees use AI (Census data via S. Bhattacharya).
- The giants are paying his way. They have spent hundreds of billions and need users to justify it. Free tiers and cheap plans are the result, and Erik can use them today.
- He doesn't need a data center. The fights over power plants and zoning are not his fights, or his clients'. They need a browser and someone like Erik.
- Small is believable. People fear AI that replaces workers for a giant corporation. A local business using AI to answer the phone faster or quote a job the same day is a different story.
Erik isn't pro-AI or anti-AI. He's pro-Main Street, and AI just got cheap enough for Main Street to use. The backlash makes his job harder to explain and more valuable to do.
Closing the circle
The backlash says AI will only help the rich and powerful. The best answer isn't an ad campaign from a tech giant. It's Erik.
The giants built too much, too fast, and the public is angry about it. That's fair. But the money has been spent, and the tools are sitting there, cheap and waiting. The question is who uses them. If only big companies do, the backlash will be proven right.
If small businesses, teachers and kids on Chromebooks learn them first, the story changes. AI stops being something done to people and becomes something they use for themselves.
That's why I make these videos, and why the camps are short and cheap. You don't have to love AI. You should understand it before someone else decides how it's used on you.
Start here: watch Camp-9, from the first plan to the final tournament, and see what one person on a Chromebook can build.