There's a very fine line between AI futurist and best-guess scifi writer. Most "AI thought leaders" are scifi writers, not technical researchers. They take preconditions, generate a story, think how it could happen given plausible technology, then market that as soon-to-be-fact.

It's an entertaining society and endlessly fun to read, but still complete fiction based on internal brain states of individuals and not necessarily based on real world interactions.

Also see: Eliezer Yudkowsky — great writer, fun to read, but largely scifi thought experiments masquerading as research.