We might be heading towards a populist backlash towards AI, but we’re not there yet. Outside the tech bubble, Americans really don’t care about AI yet.

AI is Americans’ 29th most important issue, according to the fantastic survey @davidshor ran that everyone is rightly looking at.

It’s not surprising that Americans will answer sentiment questions about AI negatively, as they’ve been negative towards tech for a while. But it’s a big leap from negative sentiment to meaningful political action.

Americans have been negative on social media for 10 years, and there has been no meaningful political action. And that’s despite all the other hallmarks of backlash people are saying about AI—violent extremists (people forget there was a shooting at YouTube HQ), protests, etc.

My prediction: we will get real populist backlash to AI when the unemployment moves by, say, 2 percentage points and people see it as caused by AI.

That is part of a longer tweet from Andy Hall.

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In December 2025, Australia became the first country to ban youth under 16 years old from holding accounts on major social media platforms, a policy now under consideration in more than a dozen countries and in numerous states. Because social media use is inherently social, the effectiveness of a ban that is easy to circumvent may depend on whether compliance reaches a tipping point: a share of compliant peers high enough to make it optimal for individuals to comply themselves. We surveyed 835 Australian teenagers four months after the ban took effect and find that only about one in four 14–15-year-olds comply. The social environment around use has barely moved: most banned teens believe that their peers are still using banned platforms and cite social reasons for continuing use. Sustaining high compliance requires two ingredients: the share of compliers must be high enough and those who comply must find it preferable to continue complying. The current ban achieves neither. Teenagers report that they require roughly two-thirds of peers to stop using social media to stop themselves, far above the share currently complying. They also perceive compliers as less popular than non-compliers, so the more influential teens disproportionately stay on the platforms. Together, these patterns suggest that compliance is more likely to diminish than to rise. Sustaining higher compliance will likely require pairing the ban with instruments that act on social norms and individual incentives directly.

That is from a new NBER working paper by Leonardo Bursztyn, Angela L. Duckworth, Rafael Jiménez-Durán, Aaron Leonard, Filip Milojević, Christopher Roth & Cass R. Sunstein.

A few days ago I was talking with a very smart fifteen year old in Australia (really).  He was of the opinion that it was quite ineffective, though he noted he could no longer access LinkedIn.  I would note there are more stringent measures, requiring more governmental monitoring and control of the internet, that perhaps could have a greater effect.

The post The social media ban in Australia, how is it going? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

NO LIES DETECTED:  Turing was Wrong.

FUNNY THAT:  I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. All the “smart” Democrats are saying that the court should have addressed this issue before the election. But the Court says IN THE DECISION: “Thoughout this litigation, the Commonwealth (ie the Democrats) has insisted that we cannot lawfully decide this case prior to the referendum”.

X-cancel.

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