There is no mechanism in existence to collectively decide anything. It's why things suck in general.

There are many mechanisms to collectively decide things, so you aren't even close about that (Democracy, the market, representative government at every level, the United Nations, proxy votes for corporations, school boards, boards of governors, juries, HOAs, ballot initiatives and referendums, elections generally, zoning commissions, family meetings, 4 friends debating where to get dinner, really far too many to list here, if anything almost all decisions of any importance are made via some mechanism to collectively decide things).

There isn't a way to collectively decide things with absolute authority, but that is why things don't suck worse in general. If we make collective decisions we could force people to do some things which are more optimal to our goals. However, that assumes that we universally agree on what the goals are (not even close) and that the decisions won't actually be worse for the chosen goals (sometimes they will be far worse) and that the decision making process will never be irreversibly hijacked by some group for their own benefit (it absolutely will be). So you are not just wrong about this, your premise is incorrect and your conclusion does not follow from that premise even if it were.

Where did I say we would or could decide against it collectively? Individual people can decide for themselves not to engage with harmful technologies in the future, just as many do today with cell phones, computers, television, etc. Not everything has to be done by governments.

That sounds like the view of an anti-progress luddite. Be careful where you make such statements.

But will we? Those of us who have been alive long enough to know what life was like before any of this may choose not to. But our youngest generation, and those to come, may grow up not knowing any different.

Not suggesting it will happen, but it is an unappealing thought.

I think, if anything, technology like this has gradually empowered people to rise above the autogenerated fugue that has historically always been a part of everyday life (though historically the human mind did a pretty good job generating that on its own thanks to widespread ignorance, superstition, and fear). Speaking personally, I find AI chatbots and image generators when I'm using them myself to be like a refreshing drink of cool fresh water compared with the sensation of being only drip fed or waterboarded by businesses wielding the technology to influence my behavior without my explicit input or full consent.

as individuals we have enough trouble asserting will over impulse as it is--hard to imagine us collectively deciding on anything like this when institutions are even more vulnerable to reactivity