The AI Category Gets An F For Marketing.

The AI category deserves an F for marketing.

Actually, let me go further:

The AI industry gets an F.
The media gets an F.
Politicians get an F.
And CEOs using AI as cover for layoffs get a giant, flaming F.

Only the tech industry could take the single greatest innovation in human history…
…and market it so badly that people want to protest it in the streets.

(Too many tech leaders, in too many categories think their carbadigulators are so great, the market will just get it. That’s not how new categories work. People need to be educated.)

Think about how insane that is.

Protesting AI 🤯

AI has the potential to cure diseases.
Accelerate scientific discovery.
Expand human creativity.
Increase productivity.
Create entirely new categories of jobs and industries.
Drive economic growth at a scale we’ve never seen.

And yet…

People are throwing Molotov cocktails at AI executives’ homes.
Communities are revolting against data centers.
Commencement speakers are getting booed for mentioning AI.
And polls show AI becoming less popular than politicians.

That’s not a technology failure.

That’s a catastrophic leadership and marketing failure.

The AI category is allowing itself to be framed almost entirely through fear:

• “AI will take your job.”
• “AI will destroy humanity.”
• “AI will kill creativity.”
• “AI will ruin education.”
• “AI will make the rich richer.”
• “AI will destroy the planet.”

 

And the worst part?

A lot of the people pushing this narrative claim to be “progressive.”

Which raises a serious question:

How did the American left go from helping America win the Internet revolution in the 1990s…
…to becoming one of the loudest anti-innovation forces in the AI era?

The Clinton administration played a critical role in America becoming the dominant force of the Internet Age.

America didn’t win the Internet race by being afraid.
America won by creating massive new value with technology.

Entrepreneurs.
Scientists.
Engineers.

Category designers.
Capitalism.
Growth.
Innovation.

New categories.

We believed technological leadership mattered.

Now?

Many of the same political and cultural forces that once championed innovation are suddenly flirting with digital Luddism.

Meanwhile, China is racing at full.

And let’s be crystal clear: if America loses the AI race, the consequences will be enormous.

AI is already becoming one of the largest drivers of economic growth in the United States. Some estimates suggest AI-related innovation could account for as much as 75% of GDP growth in the coming years.

This isn’t just another tech cycle.

This is infrastructure-level innovation.

Electricity-level innovation.

Internet-level innovation.

Society- level innovation.

And yes.

Historically, breakthroughs triggered fear and protest.

>People protested electricity.
>People protested automobiles.
>People protested factories.
>People protested recorded music.
>People protested television.
>People protested the Internet.

The Luddites literally smashed industrial machinery because they feared mechanization.

Progress has ALWAYS scared people.

But here’s what’s different now:

The people building AI are doing an atrocious job explaining why this technology matters.

Too many AI leaders sound like Bond villains.
>Too many companies market AI like a replacement for humans instead of an amplifier of humans.
>Too many executives brag about headcount reduction instead of human possibility.

If you tell society:
“Hey, this technology is coming for your livelihood…”

Don’t act shocked when society turns against you.

And the media?

Fear sells.

>“AI apocalypse” gets clicks.
>“AI destroys jobs” gets engagement.
>“AI might help cure cancer” gets buried on page B17.

Congratulations tech donkeys.

We’ve collectively taken humanity’s greatest technological leap and let assholes branded it like a horror movie.

Enough.

It’s time to take marketing AI seriously.

Right now the AI category needs real leadership.
Not hype.
Not doom.
Leadership.

We need leaders who can articulate:

• Why AI matters.
• Why innovation matters.
• Why growth matters.
• Why American technological leadership matters.
• Why abundance beats scarcity.
• Why building is better than fear.
• Why progress matters.

 

And yes, we need to say this part out loud too:

Being anti-innovation is not morally sophisticated.

It’s often economically destructive.
Strategically dangerous.
And historically ignorant.

America became America because we created the future.

If we surrender AI leadership because we’re too busy scaring ourselves while China accelerates, history will not look kindly on this moment.

The future belongs to creator capitalists who us AI to build new categories of value.

Hey AI category leaders.

Let’s start marketing AI like America’s future depends on it.

Because it does.

🏴‍☠️

 

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