> Some of this feels like at times a public frenetic grieving process.

I was thinking the same, that most of the opposition to AI's convenience is starting to smell like religious mysticism, the kind of arguments religious people made (and make) when Evolution and Natural Selection were introduced:

√ "Stop simplifying humans down to numbers!"

√ "This denies our spirituality"

√ "What do we strive for now if we're not special?"

+ (along with some borderline jihadish hate heh ..maybe Dune got it right)

Well, either there was nothing special about whatever you were doing after all

or, maybe there is still something special at a higher level you haven't looked at yet.

Most of the boosterism around AI is also starting like religious mysticism, the kind of arguments religious people made (and make), trust in God/AI, abundance is here, no one will have to work. I wonder what that tells us?

It also doesn't help that people are generally not optimistic about the future.

The economics in the West feel very strained right now, and this incredible tool has come along just in time to threaten one of the last bastions of middle-class safety: white collar jobs.

AI is just another technology, and all technologies should be employed in service to humans.

I think it’s reasonable for people to say “I like the way things were, I don’t like this new future you’re proposing, and I want to limit the technology that’s doing the thing I don’t like.”

There is nothing inevitable about AI. As a society we may decide it is fundamentally unhealthy or anti-human. We have banned or curtailed access and research for other technologies before.

The irony of what you said and how you said it is glaring.