I recently listened to a journalist who spoke to many AI workers in SV. There is an alarmingly pervasive pseudo-religious attitude that they are ushering in a new form of life, and that it is their destiny to be the people who make it happen. Most of them will candidly tell you humanity may go extinct as a result (with at least a 1 in 10 chance), but they choose to plow ahead regardless.

Others appear to be in common modes of willful denial: hubris or salary-depends-on-not-knowing syndrome.