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# Why AI's Honeymoon with the Middle Class Is Over
- URL: https://adjacent.media/signals/why-ais-honeymoon-with-the-middle-class-is-over/
- Published: 2026-05-27T23:05:16.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-27T23:05:16.000Z
- Description: The early narrative of AI as a helpful, deferential assistant—epitomized by ChatGPT’s politeness and accessibility—has shifted as the technology moves into actual workflows and consumer decisions.
- Author: Jonathan Greene
- Tags: #signal, theme-consumer, attention economy, platform dynamics, trust and credibility

Source: [Virginiaheffernan](https://virginiaheffernan.substack.com/p/scream-if-you-want-to-move-slower)

The early narrative of AI as a helpful, deferential assistant—epitomized by ChatGPT's politeness and accessibility—has shifted as the technology moves into actual workflows and consumer decisions. Users are now experiencing the friction of AI systems making consequential choices (hiring, lending, content moderation) without transparency or recourse, replacing the earlier fantasy of AI as a personal concierge with the reality of AI as an opaque gatekeeper. Adoption is becoming less about excitement and more about accepting a necessary evil.