After they put out the AI chatbots and everybody got to play with them and make posts, now they're all coming out against it.
Why the 180°?
Might it be because the 'singularity', or whatever they call it, where AI becomes self aware, that THEY are the humans AI will eliminate?
Self-awareness isn't the only possible danger from AI.
Even the earliest electronic computers suffered from coding mistakes; they sometimes did things their programmers did not expect or foresee; they sometimes glitched when hardware problems or unexpected software interactions happend.
During the computer preparations for Y2K, a valve in a gasoline pipeline in a canyon opened at the wrong time, spewed gasoline which eventually ignited, killing (if I recall correctly) two people. We've all experienced stoppages and unexpected problems with computers.
A good many stories have been written or filmed about computers just following their seemingly-benign programming, only to take it to extremes that the programmers did not foresee -- and cause serious problems as a result.
Consciousness or self-awareness are not required for harmful computer action, and the bigger and more entrenched the computer system is, the larger the potential for serious harm.
Well put. A bug in software that may have affected the lives of dozens, maybe hundreds, of people 40 years ago - that same bug would likely affect millions today. Computers are so deeply entrenched it would not take a significant failure to create significant harm.