Valid counterpoint. There's an incredibly widespread belief in those circles that if you don't crank up the hyperbole nobody will pay any attention at all.

Unfortunately there's some truth to it, especially in the mass media age. We have a President who became the most powerful person on Earth by more or less eating his own boogers, because it got attention, and "any attention is good attention as long as they spell your name right." It works, unfortunately.

But it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you crank up the hyperbole you discredit yourself. If you don't, you're ignored. Rational measured opinions get no press and have no "virality."

Some of the AI doomers are, I think, genuinely kind of nuts (the Rationalists), but I suspect that some of them (especially actual scientists like Hinton) are doing this. They think if they don't make bombastic claims nobody will listen.

Unfortunately it means everyone will dismiss the entire issue when, in a few years, AI has not destroyed humanity.