Barber in a non-tech-hub city asked what my upcoming interview was about, and I avoided mentioning AI. I thought he'd dislike me if I did.

I said software engineering, which felt like lying by omission; very uncharacteristic of me.

Bothered by my own censoring, I tested whether the fear was justified.

"So, how do you feel about AI?"

I got back a passionate "I hate it!" followed by a 10-minute diatribe about how AI is ruining society:

- It makes us all more isolated
- We're going to lose jobs
- It's bad for the environment
- It's dangerous

A good reminder that I live in a bubble and that I'm not factoring in anti-AI sentiment enough in my predictions.

For example, this interaction negatively updated my success expectation for mainstream customer-facing agent products like muse.