Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky thinks Silicon Valley holds the answer to AI's growing public perception problem: build things for regular people.
Chesky, a major proponent of AI, acknowledged AI backlash among Americans in an interview on the Yahoo Finance podcast "Power Players with Brian Sozzi" published this week. Part of the reason for it, he said, is the kinds of AI products that Silicon Valley is and isn't shipping.
"I think part of it's a narrative issue that we're not talking about AI correctly," he said. "But part of it is we need to actually be developing more products that just regular people can use and say, 'I love AI because AI allows me to have a doctor on demand and I can't have that. I can't afford that.' And so I think we need more regular things."
Chesky said that compared to when he started Airbnb 18 years ago, many founders now seem to be "afraid" to make consumer-facing products. He said in the last batch of companies at the startup accelerator Y Combinator, where he is on the board, 159 out of 175 were enterprise, not consumer.
"It's in Silicon Valley's interest for us to develop consumer applications that improve people's lives," he said. "You know why? Because regular people in the United States do not like AI. I'm making a generalization. But if you look at polling of AI, the concept of AI is not popular outside of Silicon Valley, and yet this is a technology that can help so many people's lives."
A Pew Research Center report in June found that 40% of US adults believed the impact of AI on society over the next 20 years would be negative, while only 16% believed it would be positive.
The rising AI resistance has put some Silicon Valley figures on the offensive. Several AI companies have put out rainbow-filled, feel-good ads in an attempt to flip the script on Americans' doom-and-gloom fears about an AI-ridden future. Tech CEOs are also writing lengthy manifestos about what the future with AI will look like, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's 6,500-word screed published this week titled "The Future is for Everyone."
Airbnb declined to provide additional comment when reached by Business Insider.
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Kelsey is a senior reporter for Business Insider, where she covers business and tech news as well as stories about travel, luxury, and consulting.Her feature story "Disaster at 18,200 feet" received awards from the New York Press Club and the North American Travel Journalists Association, as well as honorable mention from the Society of American Travel Writers. It was also included on Longreads' and Pocket's best of 2022 lists. She has also received an American Journalism Online Award for her coverage on missing and murdered Indigenous people in Wyoming.She's appeared on CBS, NPR, NBC, and other outlets to discuss her work. She previously worked on the world news desk at the BBC in London and received a master's in journalism from Northwestern University.She can be reached by email at [email protected] or via the encrypted-messaging app Signal @kelseyv.21.Popular storiesDisaster on Denali: Inside a 1,000-foot fall on America's highest peakThrifting is more popular than ever. It's also never been worse.Rolex wouldn't service the vintage watch my mom inherited. Watchmakers say it happens all the time.A tiny, invasive bug and the climate crisis are changing how guitars are made, and shifting the course of music historyThe tourism free-for-all is overGovernment-run boarding schools were founded to 'civilize' Native Americans. Hundreds of dead children remain buried in the schoolyard graves.Meet the Texas minister who helps fly dozens of women to New Mexico every month to get abortionsPeople are flocking to Colorado for the great outdoors, but the air pollution is so bad, it's forcing many to stay insideInside Kabul: An aid worker reveals the devastating chaos that erupted during the US exit from Afghanistan
