Of course it is. Are you instead thinking of the carefully controlled and choreographed “protests” in countries like China where the government and especially the police knows with absolute certainty what the crowd is protesting against and how they are protesting, with an overwhelming police presence that’s ready to shut down the whole protest at the first whiff of trouble?

And of course it is a high-stress situation if you are merely a passerby with no advance knowledge of what the protest is all about, which is what is happening here. Are the protesters aligned with or against your own values? Will anything you wear or the way you look become the ire of the protesters? Suppose for the sake of argument you did not vote for Donald Trump, would it not be stressful if no one told you in advance that a group of Trump supporters are protesting against the “unfair” votes right in front of you?

Sometimes you just don’t want politics in your life and just want the equivalent of boring suburbs.

> Suppose for the sake of argument you did not vote for Donald Trump, would it not be stressful if no one told you in advance that a group of Trump supporters are protesting against the “unfair” votes right in front of you?

No. There will most likely be a way to get around or through the crowd. The article talks about a protest and not an angry mob.

> Sometimes you just don’t want politics in your life and just want the equivalent of boring suburbs.

At this point AI is a highly political topic and people turn up at a protest, specially because they can't avoid the negative effects of AI in their personal lives.