As Brundolf said, marketing. But also, science fiction. Finally, a large tribe of scamming and somehow funded imbeciles like Robin Hanson, Nick Bostrom and that weirdo who writes harry potter slashfic.

The same dynamic manifested itself when nanotech was a thing; there was a big tribe of knuckleheads claiming the grey goo apocalypse was right around the corner unless you give them money. How's that working out? FWIIW the science fiction writer who dreamed up nanotech, Drexler, is now an "AI" guy, to make it painfully obvious.