I'll take this one.
A lot of the early research that is leading to the current boom in artificial intelligence started in the context of social media. A lot of the early research on what is now called deep learning and AI was done for social media recommendation algorithms.
Personally, I'm in a younger generation, the oldest gen Z generation. I remember we had a promise, in a sense, that if we just let social media and the Internet run free, if we didn't regulate, it would bring freedom and prosperity to the world. I don't know, but perhaps some members remember, for example, the Arab Spring. There was a widely held belief by me and by many other people at the time that widespread access to the Internet and social media would bring freedom and democracy.
These promises have turned out to be lies. They have not come true. They instead are being used by social media companies to cannibalize many aspects of our interpersonal communications and interpersonal relationships for their personal benefit. They are now pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into lobbying and other forums to try to prevent people from interfering.
I think the same pattern of behaviour—developing a technology so quickly that governments cannot react and actively trying to slow down governments to prevent them from regulating this technology until it's already too late—is exactly the playbook we are seeing being deployed right now by AI companies.