I think that's a bit mean to the people (in my experience most people) who didn't and still don't see it. What's happening right now is really akin to magic. We're throwing incantations at sand and it's doing work for us. The rate of change is such that nobody can keep up with it all, even the people like me who use it daily.

What people DO see is having to use or be monitored by ABYSMAL types of AI at work or when they try to call x company for support or whatever. The outcry against data centers when the same people building them were moaning about how electric vehicles would crash our electric grid completely is quite justified. As is the outcry about creative and intellectual theft. Add deepfakes, scams, spam, misinformation, etc. and the negative externalities of AI for most people seem to far outweigh the "benefits". And everything beneficial seems to just be training the AI to do your job in disguise. Add in that the billionaires behind most of this tech come off as completely out of touch with the real world and I totally see the perspective of "screw AI and everything it stands for" even if I don't share it myself.

I think you are too lenient. Everyone has the same access to the information nowadays. Everyone can ask, even an LLM, about how it works, what does this and this mean.

There are no excuses in this day and age. I am also sometimes lazy but I never pat myself on the back for it.

Why would I hold other people to lower standards than myself? I think that, would be offensive.

I refuse to treat other people as less than myself. If I can investigate this topic without experience or phd then I assume anyone can obtain such knowledge before unleashing scathing critique.

Do not defend people who hate on things without due diligence and who generally are quick to hate.

My guess is there's a whole plethora of important information you're ignorant about that you could just look up and have full knowledge of if you cared. But nobody has time to care about everything. People only have so much time in a day. After 8 hours of working and 2 hours commuting because nobody can afford to live in a city anymore people just want to eat dinner, relax for a bit, and go to bed. Maybe spend time with their kids instead of sitting around reading about how AI is going to make them obsolete.

Example I would give is I'm totally ignorant of local politics. I just don't have any time at all to parse it, and I probably wouldn't bother even if I were magically given the time. There's people out there that would be just as upset at me as you are at people ignorant about AI. And it's not that I'm lesser than the person focused on local politics, I just spend my time elsewhere.