Let's face facts: the great majority of ordinary people have always been, and will always be, neither interested in nor capable of expending the kind of intellectual effort required to understand anything more complex than a soundbite or a trite meme. Politicians have always been and will always be halfwit opportunists incapable of grasping matters of existential importance. And experts exhibit the same cognitive biases evinced by ordinary people, only experts believe their domain expertise precludes this. Studies of so-called "super predictors" however reveal that "experts" are no better than ordinary people at predicting real-world outcomes. Experts merely extrapolate in straight lines, just like ordinary people do.

The challenges of AI are immense, but as always we'll largely fail to comprehend the real challenges, much less address them in a timely manner. As always happens, we'll make a huge mess and then attempt a piecemeal clean-up afterward. That's the nature of our species, and no amount of wishful thinking will, alas, every change this reality.