The AI industry doesn’t take “no” for an answer

Feb 3rd, 2026, 13h45

For days now, I've had a quote from David Bushell stuck in my head:

Has anyone else noticed that the AI industry can’t take “no” for an answer? AI is being force-fed into every corner of tech. It’s unfathomable to them that some of us aren’t interested.

David complained about receiving communications from Proton offering Lumo, its generative AI, even though he had expressly indicated that he did not want to receive such messages. The worst part is that Proton, instead of owning up to its mistake and apologizing, insisted on absurd justifications to say that there was no mistake. It only gave in when an executive got involved, and only after the post went viral.

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Firefox is another example. A few days ago, the Mozilla Foundation launched a weird website (it looks like it was made by AI) outlining its efforts for 2025 and plans for 2026. The first sentence over there says:

AI isn’t just another tech trend — it’s at the heart of most apps, tools and technology we use today.

Is this because there is real demand for it, or because companies and institutions like Mozilla are pushing AI as hard as they can?

I'll take a moment to list other things that didn't go down well on this Mozilla website:

“The choice we face is stark: the wrong direction for AI is a threat to the web and humanity. A better version of AI helps the web, and helps humanity.” This is a false dichotomy. There are other possible futures without AI at the center of everything.
In that sense, why does Mozilla position itself as the savior of the future? What AI products do they have? How will they compete with rivals who invest billions (with a B) of dollars in this technology?
The parallel the site draws with Microsoft and its Internet Explorer is weak and incorrect. Firefox didn't win anything. IE and Firefox lost to Chrome.
Chrome, incidentally, is owned by Google, a company that leads AI in the “wrong direction,” according to Mozilla's definition. Why doesn't Mozilla take them on? Because it depends on Google's dirty money to exist. You don't bite the hand that feeds you.
On several pages, a sliding text appears saying “Do not accept default settings.” Ironic, given that many people complain about Firefox's default AI settings.
Among Mozilla's concrete plans for 2026 is a general AI shutdown button in Firefox (coming in version 148 on February 24^th). It seems like a huge concession against the technology that is (supposedly) redefining the world.

Another great example came from DuckDuckGo, which opened a poll asking whether you are for or against AI. After more than 175,000 votes, 90% of respondents said no to AI.

DDG's approach is one of the least offensive. AI features are optional and, in many cases, segmented. A good example is the chatbot that uses commercial LLMs and adds a layer of privacy between the user and the companies that own the models, duck.ai. I use it. I think it's good. AI has its uses. Is it revolutionary? Let's take it easy.

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The revolts against Proton, Mozilla, and DuckDuckGo over AI could be outliers. They attract an audience that is more aware of the deplorable state of privacy on the internet, a profile that often overlaps with those who are averse to generative AI.

Perhaps AI is more accepted in the big picture? I felt a strong shock to this hypothesis in recent statements by Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. In his blog (written by AI?), Nadella said that

We need to get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication and develop a new equilibrium in terms of our “theory of the mind” that accounts for humans being equipped with these new cognitive amplifier tools as we relate to each other.

“Please stop saying that AI-generated garbage is garbage” is what I read between the lines.

Someone commented the other day — I don't remember who or where — that they have a theory that CEOs have fallen into the same delusion as people who treat ChatGPT as if it were a friend.

In that same disastrous conversation in which Satya realized that water is wet — that AI is only a hot topic for AI companies — he also said that his confidence in the revolutionary potential of AI came from seeing GitHub Copilot spit out code. He handed a trump card to those who define generative AI as a glorified autocomplete.