AI was never exactly HARD. Organic computation, at it's core, has existed for a long time. Fundamental machine learning stuff, neural networks. Simulations. And they've been good! If you wanted to gaze into the infinite waters, I'm pretty sure that was a windows xp screensaver to do that.
But it's a different thing for AI to be literally magic, and that requires belief. We have that plus trillions. People say, ohhhh it's going to break out, shut off stuff, fire nukes. It has instead escaped into the minds and processes of every top 500 CEO and their business. It evaluates candidates. It judges us and for us. You can't interact with something like that and not get scrambled. You also can't see it outright.
To be fair, mind eating amoeba isn't the MOST common sci-fi plot ever, but it's very '50s!
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