It may be one of the most remarkable technological breakthroughs in human history. Ask the American public, though, and you’ll hear something else entirely about artificial intelligence.

A recent NBC News survey asked registered voters how they feel about a range of public figures and political topics. The results were striking. While Pope Leo posted a net favorability rating of +34, artificial intelligence came in at -20. That puts AI near the bottom of the list, ranking ahead of only the Democratic Party and Iran. According to the poll, only 26% responded “positive” to AI, while 46% responded “negative.”

Who designs the systems? Whose values do they embed? Who gets accountability when they fail? The public does not have satisfying answers, and the industry hasn’t given them many.

Think about that for a moment.

A technology widely touted as capable of curing diseases, discovering new materials, and unlocking unprecedented productivity is viewed more negatively than every U.S. politician and institution included in the poll.

Artificial intelligence may be revolutionary, but unless its architects confront the distrust surrounding it, AI risks losing the public confidence it will ultimately depend on.

A perfect storm of distrust

As someone who follows AI closely, I can’t point to a single cause of the unease. It looks more like a perfect storm.

For decades, science fiction trained audiences to associate AI with dystopia. From “2001: A Space Odyssey” to “The Terminator,” AI often appears as the moment humanity loses control of its own creation. Fiction isn’t the whole story, but it primes the public to expect the worst.

Many Americans also worry about what AI will do to the workforce. Automation has threatened certain industries for years, but AI scales the threat. It now appears poised to hit huge swaths of white-collar work, including creative fields and even decision-making roles once assumed to require human judgment.

Then came the explosion of what critics call “AI slop.” Across the internet, AI-generated articles, videos, images, and posts flood the feed. Much of it is low-effort content built to attract clicks, not provide value. The internet already buckles under misinformation and spam. AI has supercharged this problem.

Americans also distrust the companies building these systems. The left has long been skeptical of massive corporations wielding too much power. The right grew more suspicious after years of fights over social media censorship and ideological activism. ESG efforts, which used corporate power to reshape incentives around political priorities, only reinforced the sense that tech and finance elites want to run the country by proxy.

In short, both sides now distrust many of the institutions developing artificial intelligence. That is a bad position for an industry trying to introduce world-changing technology.

When the experts sound the alarm

Public unease also draws fuel from the people closest to the machine. Several prominent voices in the AI world have issued stark warnings about risk.

Elon Musk has suggested there may be “only a 20% chance of annihilation” from future advanced AI systems. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has cited a 25% chance AI development goes “really, really badly.” Geoffrey Hinton, often called the “godfather of AI,” has floated human extinction-level risk in the 10% to 20% range over the coming decades.

When the builders of a technology openly speculate about catastrophic outcomes, it’s not surprising the public grows uneasy. To the average voter, it can sound like civilization is playing Russian roulette — and the people loading the cylinder are asking to be trusted.

RELATED: Ex-NFL player asked ChatGPT for advice after allegedly murdering his fiancée

Photo by Wesley Hitt/Getty Images

Power, control, and fear of the unknown

Beyond jobs and misinformation, a deeper concern lies underneath: AI is becoming an infrastructure of decision-making.

Algorithms already shape what news we see, what products we buy, and what ideas spread online. As AI grows more capable, it will influence public opinion, political discourse, and cultural norms even more.

In authoritarian systems, that becomes an obvious tool of surveillance and control. But even in a constitutional republic, concentrating that much power in a handful of corporations — or in government — raises hard questions. Who designs the systems? Whose values do they embed? Who gets accountability when they fail? The public does not have satisfying answers, and the industry hasn’t given them many.

The AI industry should pay attention

Despite the excitement in Silicon Valley and Washington, the NBC poll reveals a simple truth: Much of the public does not trust AI. For the companies racing to build ever more powerful systems, that should be a wake-up call.

The industry often sells AI in near-utopian terms: medicine, energy breakthroughs, scientific discovery. Those gains may come. But many Americans see something else. They see massive data centers consuming energy while the internet fills with synthetic garbage. They see tech firms raising and spending billions while ordinary life gets harder. They see executives talking openly about betting civilization on tools they admit they don’t fully control.

If AI’s architects want public buy-in, they will have to address these fears directly.

A good place to start would be a clear public commitment to the constitutional principles Americans still expect: free speech, individual liberty, and personal autonomy. If AI will play a larger role in shaping information and decisions, the public needs confidence that these systems will protect fundamental freedoms rather than erode them.

AI will be shaped, in part, by trust. Right now, that trust is in short supply.

​Ai, Ai slop, Artificial intelligence, Elon musk, Dario amodei, Geoffrey hinton, Ai takeover, Ai approval, Opinion & analysis, Public opinion poll, Nbc news poll 

As the military conflict between the United States and Iran approaches its third week, many are asking questions like, “How many warheads do we have left?”; “How many missiles do they have left?”; “What is this going to cost?”; and “What is this going to do to oil?” says Glenn Beck.

While these kinds of questions are only natural, the bigger concern, he says, is “what [we’re] fighting.”

“I’m not making a case to fight Iran or this war or anything,” he assures.

But “you have to understand what you’re dealing with.”

And what we’re dealing with is an apocalyptic form of Islam known as “Twelver Shi’ism.”

On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn exposes this radical theology that has guided Iran’s top leaders, military operations, and possibly even its lethal responses to Trump and Israel’s joint attacks.

“The name [Twelver Shi’ism] comes from their belief in the 12th Imam — divinely appointed leader … that succeeded Muhammad. … Muhammad was the first; the 12th one, Muhammad al-Mahdi, he was believed to have disappeared in the ninth century in a well when he was a child,” Glenn explains.

“According to the Twelver belief, he’s going to climb out of that well, and he’s going to return in the end days, OK? And when he returns, he’s going to establish a perfect Islamic justice that will oversee the entire world; he’s going to defeat all evil; he will convert everyone to Islam; and he’ll rule from Jerusalem, and the world’s transformed,” he continues, emphasizing the parallels in Christian end-times prophecies.

But what does this have to do with the current conflict with Iran?

“[Twelvers] truly believe that they can hasten [Mahdi’s] return if they plunge the world into chaos. … That crisis prepares the ground for the final victory of Islam,” says Glenn, drawing a parallel to Revelation’s prophetic warnings of “global upheaval, wars, famine, [and] pestilence” followed by “a powerful figure … promising peace and justice,” who is actually the Antichrist — “the deceiver.”

“The hero in one story looks very much like the villain of the other story.”

Even though “not every Shia Muslim believes in accelerating chaos … the most powerful clerical authorities in Iran do believe it,” says Glenn.

“In fact, Iran’s leadership, they frame the military mission in these terms,” he adds, noting that Iran’s “armies reference the Mahdi directly” and are taught that “they’re preparing for the Mahdi’s return.”

Even Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — the central religious and political leader of the Iranian regime that drove out the Shah in 1979 — thought the “Twelvers were too dangerous,” despite believing in hastening the return of the Madhi through chaos.

“The ones [Khomeini] said were too dangerous because they were so unpredictable and could get everybody killed … those are the people that are in charge of [Iran] right now,” Glenn warns.

“That’s not religious speculation. This is state ideology. And these are the people that are arming the terrorist groups and sending signals to sleeper cells possibly here in America.”

Currently, Iran is actively launching missile and drone strikes on several of its Arab neighbors, which seems counterintuitive to us.

But we have to “stop thinking like a Westerner,” says Glenn.

If Iran’s goal is to “get everybody at war with each other,” starting with “setting the Arab world on fire” makes sense in its grand scheme to hasten the Mahdi’s return.

“So we have to ask ourself: Who are we actually dealing with?”

To hear more, watch the video above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​The glenn beck program, Glenn beck, Twelver shi’ism, Iran, Iran war, Blazetv, Blaze media, Mahdi, Islam, End times 

Quentin Tarantino is going way out of his comfort zone with his next project.

No grind-house gore, 1970s-style banter, or even bare feet. Tarantino’s new project is a play, not a movie. “The Popinjay Cavalier,” to open in London’s West End next year, is an 1830s-set comic farce.

‘We’re making a movie, not hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy.’

It sounds like a twee Wes Anderson project, but it’s merely the Oscar winner stretching his creative wings for a new kind of story, all the while stalling on what his 10th and final film will be.

Here’s guessing Rosanna Arquette won’t be invited to opening night …

Crock lobster

Should late-night TV shows go the “legal notes” route? We’ve already seen “The View” adopt that survival strategy after one too many Fake News stories.

Colbert and Co. are often just as bad, and this week, they’re even worse. The usual late-night suspects ripped into Team Trump for spending way too much on surf and turf. The phony narrative ignored historical precedent. The U.S. military routinely treats soldiers to great grub to thank them for putting their lives on the line.

To hear folks like Seth Meyers tell it, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is eating large 24/7 with a greasy lobster bib around his Fox News neck.

Here’s Kimmel pushing the false narrative to its illogical conclusion:

Again, just in September, [Hegseth] spent $2 million of taxpayer money on Alaskan king crab. He spent $6.9 million on lobster tail. $140,000 on doughnuts. $124,000 on ice cream machines. $26,000 on sushi preparation tables. And $15.1 million on ribeye steak. What is this, “My 600-Pound Defense Department”?

Stop it, you’re killing us!

RELATED: Tarantino torches ‘Pulp Fiction’ actress for crying ‘racist’ — 30 years later: ‘You took the money’

Photo by Ernesto Ruscio/Getty Images

Too ‘Late’

When you’ve lost Variety, it’s not a good sign.

Legacy outlets like the Hollywood Reporter and Variety routinely carry late-night TV hosts’ water. They regurgitate their tepid punch lines while protecting them against serial fact-checks.

But Variety did something unexpected this week. The rag mocked Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” for becoming a never-ending ego trip in his final weeks on the air.

The show’s focus on its own host’s misfortune has become outsized and a bit dramatic, especially because so many other institutions are in crisis: With everything else going on in the world, we have to go through a months-long celebration of life for a comedian whose job is coming to an end?

The site’s readers were not happy with the column. The Facebook comments section uniformly raged against the op-ed. We could have warned them. Never expect things to go smoothly when you peek your head outside the progressive bubble …

Gay abandon

Margaret Cho can’t get her talking points straight.

The lesbian comic savaged you-know-who while accepting an award from the website Queerty.

“It’s a f**king nightmare, we’re in a f**king war, they want to draft people for this incontinent child molester who doesn’t even know what he wants out of anything. It’s just insane.”

She also said the trans community faces a genocide under President Trump. A few beats later, she changed her tone so violently that a few in the crowd may have suffered whiplash.

“So what we have to do as gay adults, if you’re a gay adult, you have to stand up and be proud. Throw your shoulders back and look happy all the time. Because trans kids will see you, gay kids will see you, and they will see you and they will say, ‘Hey, that person made it. They’re happy. Maybe I can grow up to be like them, maybe I can be like that happy person.’”

Right. Because nobody sounds happier than Margaret Cho …

The Docter is in

My, have things changed at the Mouse House.

Disney animators saw themselves as the tip of the woke spear not long ago. Animators injected sexual themes into kiddie fare, purportedly to change young hearts and minds. Or, as one infamous Disney employee described it, the company’s “not-at-all-secret gay agenda.”

A few mega-flops later, Disney is singing a different tune. Screaming it, to be precise. The company stripped a trans character from its Pixar TV series “Win or Lose.” Recent sequels like “Inside Out 2” and “Moana 2” delivered joyous fun without the woke lectures.

Now, veteran Pixar director Pete Docter is delivering the smackdown on those demanding that Disney sexualize its content. Docter previously helmed “Monsters, Inc.” and “Up,” among notable Pixar projects, and he explained to the Wall Street Journal why the company removed gay themes from its 2025 dud release, “Elio.”

“We’re making a movie, not hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy,” he said.

Here’s betting some Disney employees might need some after hearing that quote.

​Hollywood, Celebrities, Entertainment, Culture, Jimmy kimmel, Quentin tarantino, Pete hegseth, Margaret cho, Movies, Tv, Toto recall 

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani proudly announced the creation of the Office for LGBTQIA+ Affairs and nominated a transgender-identifying male to lead it.

Mamdani said that New York City had the highest number of “queer” people of any city in the U.S. during the announcement Friday. Attorney Taylor Brown will be the first transgender person to lead an agency or office in New York City.

‘With Taylor Brown as director of the new Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs, the city’s queer community will not only be celebrated, but protected at every turn.’

“New York City is proud of its LGBTQIA+ community and will refuse to deny health care, safety, or dignity to anyone on the basis of their identity,” Mamdani said in a statement. “With Taylor Brown as director of the new Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs, the city’s queer community will not only be celebrated, but protected at every turn.”

Brown said the office would protect members of the LGBTQIA+ community from “hostile actors” in his statement.

“New York has given me everything — life-saving health care, education, a home, a career, my chosen family, and a life of purpose. I am so proud to serve this city as the inaugural director of the Mayor’s Office for LGBTQIA+ Affairs,” he said.

“I will work every day to ensure that the doors of New York City remain open to all and to continue New York City’s legacy as a beacon of opportunity and hope for those who have been ignored, discriminated against, and intentionally excluded,” Brown added.

The office will absorb the previous NYC Unity Project established under the de Blasio administration.

RELATED: ‘Tax them to the white meat!’ Mamdani’s new ‘equity officer’ posted now-deleted X posts against white women.

Mamdani said the office will also work to make sure transgender and other LGBTQ+ members get as many city services as possible.

Trans activists previously praised Mamdani for naming Abby Stein, a transgender-identifying man, ex-Orthodox Jew, and activist, to his transition team.

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​Mamdani transgender, Office for lgbtqia affairs, Trans lawyer taylor brown, Lgtbqia agenda, Politics