But, when news got out that Duolingo was making the switch to become an “AI-first” company, planning to replace contractors who work on tasks generative AI could automate, public perception of the brand soured. Still, the potential threat of bosses attempting to replace human workers with AI agents is just one of many compounding reasons people are critical of generative AI. Add that to the error-ridden outputs, the environmental damage, the potential mental health impacts for users, and the concerns about copyright violations when AI tools are trained on existing works. Many people were initially in awe of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools when they first arrived in late 2022. “I think there is a new sort of ambient animosity towards the AI systems,” says Brian Merchant, former WIRED contributor and author of Blood in the Machine, a book about the Luddites rebelling against worker-replacing technology.