I just had a very exhausting conversation yesterday with some in-laws about this exact thing. The exact phrase: "New headlines say musk and all those smart tech guys are warning us about AI and how it will kill us all" was uttered without irony...

Long since retired, husband worked majority of his career for a 3-letter agency as a security analyst so they are right to be paranoid (they've seen how the sausage is made). Yes the surveillance state is very real and yes we are giving away all our data. She recognized how we give away our credit card pins, bank acct numbers, ssn numbers, and all that withiut second thought. That much she agreed to. But she cpuldnt make the connection to all this eventually leading to, trading freedom for safety.

Everything they spouted was pure mass media fear mongering talking points... she couldn't see how it was manipulation. She couldn't see how it was a path to eroded rights and state capture. She full on scoffed when I said that when the fear is big enough, enough ppl will be convinced to support laws that remove freedom for the sake of protecting us from AI (patriot act anyone?). Its crazy to me how someone can be so paranoid about data security and yet be the biggest bootlicker for the biggest personal data abuser out there. sad.