JOEL KOTKIN: The anti-AI backlash is building against tech oligarchs playing God: The problem is not so much the technology but with the people building it, who have attracted the enmity of all political sides. “People across the West increasingly fear the tech oligarchs, people who run companies with stock market valuations larger than the GDP of most nations. By some measures, Apple alone is worth twice the GDP of Mexico; Microsoft is as large as Italy. Even people obsessed about their devices believe the tech overlords have overreached, enticing the enmity of Right, Left and pretty much everyone in between. Globally, trust in tech firms has been heading down for years, and is particularly low in Japan, France, and the US. In America, notes Pew, barely 10 per cent of people – Republican, Democrat or independent – see social media in a positive light.”