>And it's not at all surprising or some farfetched claim that people who enjoy having sex with someone might adopt their ideas, at least publicly, for fear of losing that sexual connection.

am i naive? in the direction you pose this, i can't imagine it's that common and if that happens i don't feel sorry for our imagined victim. being a bay area guy who attends so many orgies that AI doomerism rubs off on him? and he keeps spreading it to other people and that some substantial bulk of doomerism is due to this mechanism such that it voids the ideological purity of doomerism? i'm not a bay area guy and i haven't attended these orgies but i hope they have other shit to talk about at the orgies than AI

if the relationship is flipped - being genuinely interested in the theory but then being roped into weird sex shit that you didn't ask for, sure that that sounds predatory. a sex cult where AI is instrumental, rather than an AI cult where sex is instrumental. it would be more remarkable imo but i don't know if anyone is saying out loud that's what's happening.