Ah, I get it. Your emphasis is on the "cope" framing. You say that, but it didn't click for some reason. Don't mind me.

I suppose I have also interpreted downplaying of AI's impact as largely coping too.

The arrivals of machines that can outthink us (or will soon) only 80 years after the invention of the transistor is so clearly (to me) a change incomparable to anything that has happened prior. It is very hard to relate to arguments that downplay the complete upheaval to the order of life on Earth that non-biological cognition and interests herald.

It does not seem surprising to me, in the sense that we humans ourselves, and our technology, are of a different order than anything that came before. We have not stopped accelerating change. AI is (will soon be) building directly on that. But we will no longer be a bottleneck.

My strong impression, is the faster things change, the more people tune out that the change isn't stopping. Some of that reversal-response must involve coping. Perhaps another reason is that faster-than-us change is challenging to imagine.

But your point is valid. False or uncertain assumptions of "cope" motivations don't help anything.