I don't see many academics indulge in sensationalist doomsaying. That's the real difference here. SETI wouldn't and couldn't seek grants by proposing to contact murderous aliens.

I think academics have a general faith in goodwill of intelligence.Benevolence may be a convergent phenomenon. Maybe the mechanisms of reason themselves require empathy and goodness

Huh? There's plenty of AI doomerism amongst academics, see Bengio, Hinton, etc...

Hinton makes cliched statements as if he's not given much thought to safety but feels obliged for whatever reason

The capitalists run it into the ground while the academics stand around confused asking each other what happened?