earnest question, hope this does not come off as skeptical of the skeptical position on ai and especially their salesmen. I ask because I share your skepticism, not because i think it's silly, to be clear.

does it ever occur to your types of commenters (derisive of an entire field because of personal experience) that some people who talk about stuff like control systems/ai/safety recognize this, and it's actually why they want sensible policies surrounding the tech?

not because they're afraid of skynet, but because they observe both, the reading comprehension statistics of a populace over time, and the technological rate of progress?

tech very clearly doesn't have to be a god to do serious societal damage... e.g. fossil fuel use alone...social media has arguably done irreparable harm with fairly simple algorithms... the ottomans went to great lengths to keep the printing press from their empire, and certainly not because it was bullshit or god.

Or do you recognize those types and classify them as a negligible minority?