Factually! with Adam Conover - Here's Proof EVERYONE hates A.I.

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

(In addition to your weekly Factually! episode, this week we're bringing you a monologue from Adam. This short, researched monologue originally aired on the Factually! YouTube page, but we are sharing audio versions of these monologues with our podcast audience as well. Please enjoy, and stay tuned for your regularly scheduled episode of Factually!Everyone besides tech CEOs has been saying it. Now they’re starting to say it too. Visit https://groundnews.com/factually to stay fully informed, see through biased media and get all sides of every story. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through my link.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. So I am fully on the record as an AI hater. And, you know, based on how many of you click on my AI hating videos, I'm guessing you are too. And that means, like me, you're probably used to hearing that AI is inevitable. That if you don't use it, you'll be left behind from everyone, from tech CEOs to random dudes on the internet. Oh yeah, AI is water.

It is oxygen. Without it, you will surely perish. Every second you do not spend plodmaxing brings you closer to the fiery bits of hell. No one is safe. I mean, we're even seeing this argument from formerly normal celebrities like Reese Witherspoon, who recently got upset that most of the women in her book club aren't using AI. If three out of ten women are the only ones using AI, that means 70% of that group is not keeping up. Reese, you got to listen to your girls. They're looking out for you. If seven out of ten women say no to something, they're probably right. At least based on the response I get on dating apps. You know, something tells me the way that book club actually went was more like those TikTok videos

where a woman-esque strangers in the bathroom for advice. Should I get by? Listen to the girlies, Reese. They're trying to save you from yourself. Dump AI before it marries you. But, you know, if the endless drumbeat of tech bros and celebs trying to force feed you AI has made you wonder, if maybe they're right, if maybe we're the only ones left who hate this shit, if maybe we really are going to get left behind, well, you know what?

we don't need to worry, because we now have proof that most people in America are certified AI haters just like us. Take a look at this poll, which showed that a majority of registered voters believe the risks of AI outweigh its benefits. I mean, this poll was so devastating, even ICE ranked as more popular than AI. And you know who really hates AI, the youths? The number of Gen Z respondents who feel positively about AI is down to 18%. I mean, that is wild. AI has a worse approval. rating with Gen Z than slim fit jeans. Is this too much of a cell? Am I doing the DreamWorks face? I mean, Gen Z hates AI so much. They are booing it at their own dang college graduations. Check out this video from the University of Central Florida.

The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution. Oh, oh, oh, record. May I finish? A few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives. Yes, just like every AI stand, that woman has the energy of a substitute teacher who's about to get locked in a utility closet. Young people across America are showing us how to treat those damn clanker lovers.

Why, just follow the lead of these kids at Middle Tennessee State University. AI is rewriting production as we sit here. I know it. Deal with it. Like I said, it's a tool. AI is a tool, more like you're a tool! The way this guy says deal with it sounds like a dad whose kids are going to grow up to go no contact.

I mean, that man is single-handedly undoing everything Ryan Gosling did for a slutty little glasses this year. Now look, as fun as it is to watch the kids get a little rowdy, it also feels wild to see them reject AI like this, because wasn't the stereotype supposed to

be that the younger generation is the first one to adopt a new technology? I mean, when I was a teenager, I taught myself HTML so I could code my own Babylon 5 web page. The blink tag made the fanfic extra horny. I mean, when I was 16 years old, adults literally hired me to code webpages for them. And in the social media age, young people are so much better at dank memes than older people that there's an entire video genre about the Gen Z intern making social media content. Nothumblin Zoo hits different.

Main character energy. Now, is that meme stupid? Yes, but would it get me to go to the zoo? Also, yes. So, if new tech is normally adopted more quickly by younger generations, why is Gen Z telling AI to get stuffed? Well, maybe we can find the answer in an unexpected place. The Catholic Church.

Pope Leo, aka Chicago Pope, aka Top Pope, aka Woke Pope, recently wrote a 43,000 word in 6,000, on how much he hates AI. And if that wasn't enough to get the kids on his side, he followed it up with another 20,000 on whether or not the band Geese is actually good. In the Pope's encyclical, Magnifica Humannitas,

he says, in the short term, it may seem advantageous to reduce labor costs or maximize financial efficiency, but in the long term, this undermines the very foundations of social coexistence. While technological successes are celebrated, the social fabric is progressively eroded eroded as if by a silent virus.

Man, by Pope standards, that is a burn. Pope burn! Pope burn! I mean, joking aside, this entire encyclical is honestly, beautifully written. It is so good that even the world's most anti-Catholic Catholic, J.D. Vance had to admit it slapped. He called it profound. And that's a pretty big deal, considering that J.D. Vance's last profound experience was at a Bob's discount furniture.

And you know, maybe the reason J.D. Vance finally had to admit the leader of his own religion might be right about something was because even Republican voters are AI haters now. That is a Fox News poll. So it's not just you. It's not just Gen Z. It's not just the Pope. Anybody who lives near a data center is an AI hater now, and that's about to be everybody, no matter your political beliefs. In a recent poll, seven in ten Americans opposed local construction of AI data centers. The New York Times even called it the most bipartisan issue since beer. Republican anger against data centers is so incredibly strong that some long-time Republican voters have even started campaigning for Democratic candidates who promised to reign in

AI. Are data center is going to flip the Senate seat? Absolutely. Yes, 100%. What's next? Is AI hatred going to get right-winger to drive hybrids and listen to Bad Bunny? I mean, check out this footage of voters in Utah booing a data center being constructed in their backyard. Yeah, you know you f*** up if you even got Mormons booing you. Mormons are so polite that when the guys from South Park wrote a whole musical about how stupid their religion is, all they did was buy an ad in the play bill. But now all these mild-mannered Republican Utahans are booing AI like it's a teen who was caught sneaking in a pump while he was soaking.

And all of this Republican hatred of AI has started to get attention from politicians. It even got Republican Governor Mike DeWine to suspend a tax break for AI data centers. And just to prove how bipartisan this issue is, that story was reported by both left-leaning and right-leaning news sources. Like, check out the breakdown of this headline from our sponsor, Ground News. That story got covered by 74 news sources, including 11 left-leaning sources and 14 right-leaning sources. That's something I find really helpful about ground news. They don't just show you the news.

They show you how different sources are covering the stories you can. care about. That's super helpful when you're researching recent news stories like we have to do on this show because it lets you see how different parts of the country are covering the same story or whether they're covering it at all. So if you want to join me in becoming a better informed, more discerning news consumer, well, check out my special code for ground news. You can get 40% off. Just go to groundnews.com slash factually. And by the way, if you want to support these videos directly and the real life human beings who make them, you can head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover. So now that we know that AI hatred is truly universal, let's ask why.

I mean, what about AI brings together Utah Mormons and the Pope and Red State Texans and Gen Z liberal art grads? Well, I think the answer might be that as AI has been shoved down our throats relentlessly, we've finally all been exposed to it for the past couple years. And it turns out that the deep down human feeling that arises when we see AI out there in the wild is disgust because the main message that AI sends to us is that the person using it, the person who's putting the AI in front of our faces, doesn't care about us and doesn't care about our humanity. They don't give a shit about us. Like, okay, how do you feel when you receive an email from a friend or colleague that was clearly written by AI? Well, it feels like a double

whammy of fuck you, doesn't it? I mean, first, the person sending the email didn't value you enough to actually sit down and spend their time communicating with you, but then they still expect you to waste your time reading their slop. It's not just rude, it's dehumanizing. And even the guys who fund the tech companies that are building AI feel this way. Paul Graham, the co-founder of the Venture Capital Fund Y Combinator recently said, I have never knowingly finished reading an email signed by a human, but written by AI. It feels like being lied to, and who would stand for that?

Like, yes, dude, who would stand for that? Nobody. So why the fuck are you building it? Like, to take another example, think about how it feels when you see AI ads out there in the wild. You know, for the past few months, L.A. mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, I can't believe I had to say that sentence,

but I, in fact, did. L.A. mayoral candidate, Spencer Pratt, has been putting AI billboards up all over my city. You know, I think these ads are disgusting. At least that's how I feel about them, because despite all the millions of dollars Pratt is supposedly raised, he doesn't actually care enough about this city to make a real ad featuring real people from the city he supposedly wants to run.

I mean, how hard is it to pay a couple Angelinos, a hundred bucks in a sag after contract to sit in front of a camera, motherfucker? And that makes Pratt look like a loser. I mean, what kind of freak can't even get real dogs to pose with him? This desperate yet lazy, flop-swet energy is part of the reason that I think people are rejecting AI. But also, I think they're rejecting it because it just looks bad. Like, okay, here's a final test. When someone says to you, that looks like it was made by AI, what do they mean?

Do they mean, it looks good? I like looking at it. I'd like to see some more. No, they mean it looks like shit. It sucks. I hate looking at it. I want to stop. And you know, that is why sort of too failed,

because it turns out people don't want to look at boring garbage that looks like shit all day. Turns out AI is like a sandwich from subway. Sure, maybe in a pinch on a deserted highway rest stop at 9 p.m. when nothing else is open, you'll open your shame hole and let that tube of wet meat and wilted lettuce slide down your hungry gullet. But not if you have another choice,

and you won't be happy about it. Instead, you'll just withstand it because that's all capitalism has seen fit to give you, but you'll resent it the entire time. In fact, average people hate AI content so much, it might turn out that one of the smartest things a business person can be right now is an AI hater, because there will always be an audience for people who want to create real things and to see real things. Like, okay, just for my own part, that is why stand-up comedy. is so important to me as a comedian.

Because I know that no matter what happens, people will always need to gather together in a dark room next to a date with a drink in their hands and have a laugh together. In fact, the more AI takes over, the more I think they'll want to get into that dark room to escape it and see something fucking real for once. And that's also why I make these videos

with other people instead of AI. First of all, because I have a need to be around other people myself. It would be really fucking lonely to write and make all this shit with chat GPD. But also I do it because I know there will always be people out there who want to see other weirdo, real humans on the internet. I mean, how else did Dax Flame get millions of devoted fans? I mean, even AI cannot be that authentically awkward. It turns out that when we are actually presented with it, human beings don't want a smoothed over algorithmic averaging of reality.

We long to see the lumpiness of our own humanity reflected in the flesh. So you know what? That's where I'm going to place my bet. I'm going to bet that the more these guys force AI on us, the more refusing to use it will become a competitive advantage. And, you know, I don't give a shit if that's not the best and fastest way to make as much money as possible. I don't give a fuck if some dude leaving his laptop open for 72 hours so he can crank out shi-de-de-been-a-be. Babylon 5 websites is going to make more money than my weird one I coded when I was 15 years old,

okay? I will make good enough money and I will sleep well enough at night and I will be happy and proud of the weirdness I create with my real human friends. I'm going to bet that in the words of the Pope, humanity in all its grandeur and woundedness must never be replaced or surpassed. That was a hate gum podcast. Hi, I am Mandy Moore. Sterling K. Brown. And I'm Chris Sullivan. And we host the podcast, That Was Us, now on Headgum.

Each episode, we're going to go into a deep dive from our show, This Is Us. That's right. We're going to go episode by episode. We're also going to pepper in episodes with different guest stars and writers and casting directors. Are we going to cry? Yes. A little bit. Are we going to laugh?

A lot. A whole lot. That's what I'm hoping, man. Listen to that was us on your favorite podcast. app or watch full video episodes on YouTube or Spotify, new episodes every Tuesday.