I'm not saying you should take them seriously*, but if you were to take them seriously, that when they say "we believe this future is coming regardless" they do in fact believe this, well, how can I put it?

Lots of people write wills, doesn't mean they're looking forward to dying or think they can do much about it. Heck, a lot of people don't even watch their diet and do exercise to maximise quality of life and life expectancy.

* I think that by the time AI is good enough to run a retail store, there's a decent chance there won't be any retail stores left anyway. It's like looking at Henry Ford's production line factories and thinking "wow, let's apply this to horse-drawn carriages!"