12 Types of People in the AI Era: From Die-Hard Skeptics to True Believers — Which One Are You?

In today's era of breakneck AI advancement, people's attitudes toward the technology have never been more divided. Some dismiss it as hype, others worship it as a savior, and many more oscillate between anxiety and wait-and-see. A Bilibili creator recently offered a sharp breakdown of 12 archetypal AI-era personas, painting a vivid portrait of the zeitgeist. This article organizes and expands on those 12 types — see which one you recognize in yourself.

The Two Extremes: The Dismissers and the Hype Believers

The first type is the "Dismisser" — people who have zero respect for AI. They consider it a bubble, both financially and technically, reducing it to "a glorified Baidu" or "just a prediction engine." Interestingly, these people are often not entirely ignorant of AI — in fact, many have tried it. The problem is they tried it very early on.

The creator himself admitted that back in late 2022 and early 2023, he also thought GPT was just a toy — until the 4o model came along and proved him wrong, and then Agents arrived and changed everything entirely. The issue is that many people sampled AI in those early days, then never updated their mental model, or only ever used low-quality products riddled with hallucinations, and drew sweeping conclusions from that limited exposure. Two defining traits characterize this group: stubbornness (forming an opinion and never revising it) and premature conclusions (declaring they've found the answer before seeing the full picture).

The second type sits at the opposite extreme: the "Hype Believers" — people convinced AI can do everything, from replacing doctors and financial analysts to authors, artists, and scientists.

The creator cuts straight to the point: "The best way to destroy something is to execute it at 200%." He argues that 90% of the reason AI gets such bad press comes from this group constantly flooding the media with headlines like "This job is dead" or "AI just killed another industry." Those who genuinely believe this are at least honest. Far more irritating are the people who deliberately manufacture anxiety for clicks — they don't even necessarily believe what they're writing, but they hype up routine feature updates into civilizational events, essentially running an anxiety-monetization business.

Workplace Archetypes: The Lamp Post Boss, the Spectator, and the Two-Faced

The third type, the "Lamp Post Boss," is mostly found among business owners. After skimming a few viral articles, they become convinced AI can replace their entire workforce, and proceed to make unreasonable demands of employees to "boost efficiency with AI" — sometimes using AI as a justification for layoffs. The creator is careful to note: the criticism here targets unreasonable demands specifically. Reasonable ones are a different matter.

The Lamp Post Boss and the Hype Believer form a symbiotic relationship: the Hype Believer writes the clickbait, and the Lamp Post Boss is its most receptive audience. These managers never learn, use, or understand the limitations of AI themselves, yet freely lecture frontline workers — "the kind of ruler in ancient times who trusted sycophants and propaganda over the people actually doing the work."

The fourth type, the "Spectator," is completely unbothered — they've never used AI, don't care to, and feel no urgency about any of it. There's almost a romantic quality to it. The fifth type, the "Two-Faced," is the most nuanced: they publicly scoff at AI while privately relying on it constantly — criticizing AI-generated writing as "soulless" in conversation, while quietly having AI write their weekly work reports. The creator frames this as a form of refined self-interest, caring more about appearances than reality. Given that social attitudes toward AI's value are still unsettled, he acknowledges this "want the face and the advantage" mentality is understandable.

Cognitive Traps and Anxiety Spirals: The AI Detective, the Hoarder, and the Self-Soother

The sixth type, the "AI Detective," fancies themselves an AI authenticator — spotting a semicolon, a bullet point, the sentence structure "not X, but Y," or a particular image aesthetic is enough for them to declare, "This was made by AI." They need a measuring stick to talk down to others, making them essentially a specialized branch of the Dismissers. That said, the creator sees some value in their existence: the internet really is flooded with AI-generated slop, and society does need some kind of filtering mechanism.

The seventh type, the "Hoarder," has collected hundreds of prompts, Skills, and MCP configurations. For them, "using AI" is more about identity and self-satisfaction than actual productivity. The eighth type, the "Self-Soother," is the Hype Believer's most vulnerable audience — anxious but never taking action. They buy online courses, collect resources, but never actually open a single tool. They use spending and bookmarking as a proxy for doing, without solving any real problem.

Belief Systems and Ideological Camps: The Ethics Advocate, the True Believer, and the Doomsayer

The ninth type, the "Ethics Advocate" (Lonely派)," sees AI as fundamentally harmful — stealing from artists, causing environmental damage, widening inequality. Like the Dismissers, they stand on the high ground of "I see what others don't," but while the Dismissers occupy the cognitive high ground, the Ethics Advocates occupy the moral one. The creator admits this group is a mixed bag — many are packaging "I don't like this" as "this is harmful," and it's hard to tell genuine concern for society apart from self-interest dressed up in ethical language. But he is emphatic on one point: AI ethics is an absolutely critical subject, and it shouldn't be dismissed just because some people abuse the conversation.

The tenth type, the "True Believer," is the Dismisser's mirror image — they ask AI everything, believe everything it says, never verify anything, have no independent judgment, and need a "messiah" to supply all of life's answers. The creator offers an interesting take here: if this person happens to be using a high-capability model, their life outcomes might actually be better than average, because strong AI judgment does genuinely outperform most people's. But if they're using a weak model, they're just blindly following bad advice.

The eleventh type, the "Doomsayer," believes AI will become sentient and destroy humanity. They're really just the flip side of the Hype Believers — same level of exaggeration, different focal point.

The Ideal: The Pragmatist Who Neither Hypes Nor Dismisses

The twelfth type — and the one the creator identifies with — is the "Pragmatist": no hype, no dismissal; they use AI to get things done and have a clear-eyed understanding of where it works and where it falls short.

The creator invokes the Zhuangzi to capture this attitude: "With the whole world praising him, he is not thereby encouraged; with the whole world blaming him, he is not thereby discouraged. He is clear about the boundary between inner and outer, and discerning about the line between honor and disgrace." This is the middle path — let AI do what it can do, don't force it or oversell it where it can't. It reflects both rationality and wisdom.

Attitude as a Mirror of Cognition

These 12 categories, though delivered with a wink, precisely reflect the psychological patterns humans reliably fall into when confronting new technology: the stubborn refuse to update their beliefs; the opportunists sell anxiety; the credulous surrender their judgment; the anxious substitute spending for action. The genuinely healthy stance is to neither deify nor belittle — to use practice as the test of a tool's actual limits.

What's worth noting is that the creator doesn't simply condemn every group. Even the AI Detectives and the Ethics Advocates, often maligned, receive acknowledgment for the role they play. This is a reminder that the AI discourse ecosystem is itself a dynamic, self-balancing system — different voices check and complement each other. In this era of technological acceleration, perhaps the rarest and most valuable quality is the clarity to know both what AI can do and what it cannot.