I think this communal subconscious response is coming from a valid place though. I will call the current explosion in AI if:
- it causes mass unemployment and social unrest
- leads to a further concentration of wealth and increase in wealth inequality
- it means I have to work more, produce more, all for the same wage or less
- it's implementation leads to large societal harms such as increased isolation/loneliness
- it ends up being overhyped causes a large economic crisis
These scenarios aren't fantasy and a lot of them are being talked about. Technologies can just be a net bad. The critics aren't some reactionary, scared mob against the enlightened. I think a lot of us have seen the playbook tech companies use and our probabilities that a company will end up being just plain bad are a lot higher now.