Online forums, including this one, amplify the vocal minority so you cannot infer prevalence or severity from the volume and veracity of online commentary. It does not represent reality.

I have a few reasons I'm worried about companies like Anthropic.

The first is that our current power grid isn't sufficient for the projected needs of AI. Forget water- most of the water used by the AI is used by the power plant, so really, it's just a proxy for electricity. There's lots of ways this worry can be addressed- newer training methods that use less power, new chips that use less power, long-term building new power generation (hopefully low or no carbon). But the people with the money need to actually acknowledge the problem and look to ways to solve it.

The second is the impact on jobs. This is personal, as while I'm pretty sure my own job is safe, lots of people around me aren't. And just because I'm pretty sure, doesn't mean I'm 100% sure I'm safe either. Sure, technology has always caused jobs to change- I'm not different from a buggy whip manufacturer when the automobile came out. I think a lot of people feel this way, from artists to programmers to taxi/uber drivers.

Sure, new technology does this all the time, but the sheer scale and speed of what AI can do means we're impacting more jobs than ever, on a much shorter time scale. A lot of people are scared.

I don't think we need to stop all AI work or anything like that- but we need to understand and address the various second and third order effects that AI is going to have, and we need thoughtful plans to address it.

And for the record- if any AI companies fails, I hope it's OpenAI. Anthropic is pretty mild in comparison, in my world view. :-)

All valid points. But why Anthropic in particular? Perhaps because they’ve taken over the spotlight from OpenAI and others in the past year or so, and also have a very loud and opinionated CEO.

Kinda odd to presume that emotional responses are the driver for negativity. Have you considered that people do not generally want AI? That the pro-AI folks might be a vocal minority?

You are correct that many people would be happy if the AI companies failed. The future they envision is not the future that many people want. Even much of the pro-LLM dialogue on HN is less about "This is my desired future" and more along the lines of: "Well, shit. If we can't stop it, may as well embrace it."

It isn't envy, it isn't jealousy, it isn't regret. It is simply unwanted.

AI may disrupt white collar work. And some blue collar too. Everyone makes fun of the Luddites until they are put in the same shoes.