While the crowd at sxsw2024 booing a sizzle reel of people either promising the beauty of the future “AI” will bring or claiming it to be “without alternative” is funny and went viral for all the right reasons, this event speaks to a deeper shift in perception.

As Brian Merchant writes:

For the buzziest tech of the moment to get shouted down at SXSW speaks volumes about the scale and nature of the animosity generative AI has amassed. The tech is seen, here, as exploitative by tastemakers and by technologists.

But I’d go further: It’s not just the public perception that OpenAI has been trying to plant in our collective understanding is falling apart due to the actions of that strange company, I think the actual narrative of “AI” is untangling.