the tech industry is preparing for the wrong fight. roon is right that the loudest criticism of artificial intelligence you still hear is that it doesn’t work, that it’s a bubble, a parlor trick, a grift wrapped around underwhelming demos and overpromises. skeptics point to launches that didn’t meet expectations and declare collapse. some have staked real money and reputations on that view. they are wrong. anyone actually using these systems can see what is happening. the models are improving quickly. ai is already contributing to real work in mathematics, physics, biology, and software engineering. months of effort are being compressed into days. tiny teams are producing outputs that used to require entire organizations. the productivity gains are not speculative or theoretical. they are visible in daily work to anyone paying attention rather than arguing from the sidelines. what the technology industry has not internalized is that this is where the real danger begins. the political risk is not that ai fails. it is that ai works. not everywhere, not perfectly, but clearly enough that it becomes a plausible explanation for why the world feels more unstable. the current criticism will fade as results accumulate. what replaces it will be far more threatening to the people building this technology. the backlash will not require mass unemployment or economic collapse. it will require fear, and fear does not need accurate causality. perception is nine tenths of the law. ai is being blamed for disruption it did not cause, for job losses driven by broader economic forces, for anxieties that long predate any algorithm. once a technology becomes a convenient story for why life feels harder, facts stop mattering. narrative takes over. this is not new. we watched the same transformation happen with social media. in a very short span, the story flipped from democratizing information to destroying society. the builders believed their products would defend them. they believed usefulness was protection. they believed good intentions would be recognized. they were wrong, and many are still paying the price for that mistake. the same forces are already organizing around ai. incumbents who see startup labs as threats to their position. politicians searching for villains to explain economic anxiety. activist institutions that have already decided the technology itself is immoral regardless of evidence. a public being conditioned daily to see artificial intelligence as the source of everything going wrong in their lives. these forces do not wait for proof. they move on narrative momentum, and that momentum is being built now, before most people have formed strong opinions. if you believe better models will save you politically, you are not paying attention. the default instinct in tech is to stay neutral, keep heads down, and let the work speak for itself. that instinct feels rational. it feels mature. it is a losing strategy. neutrality is not safety. silence is not protection. when the political environment turns hostile, isolated founders and small labs will be the most exposed. the only real defense is power. not the power to avoid conflict, but the power to survive it. narrative power, the ability to explain clearly and repeatedly why this technology matters and who benefits from it. institutional power, organizations and coalitions that can absorb political pressure instead of collapsing under it. the ability to stand for something larger than a single product, company, or cap table. mission matters here, not as aspiration, but as armor. when regulators arrive, when journalists arrive, when professional moralists prepare their frames, builders need something beyond profit margins. a reason for existing. a charter. a coalition. if you cannot clearly explain why you should exist when the knives are out, someone else will explain it for you. the bubble skeptics will be proven wrong by reality. that fight is already over, even if they refuse to see it. the real fight begins when everyone agrees the technology works, and fear fills the space skepticism leaves behind. that is the moment the backlash actually starts. plan accordingly.