This is a myth. It was arguably true 5-10 years ago, but concern with AI safety is not a fringe position even among the highest levels of AI researchers now.
Stuart Russel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_J._Russell) is the co-author of one of the most popular AI textbooks in the world and he has repeatedly said that he thinks the alignment problem is important and that AI presents an existential risk: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602776/yes-we-are-worried... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvmeTaFc_Qw
Marcus Hutter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Hutter) is another respected AI researcher who, along with, Tom Everitt (http://www.tomeveritt.se/) (a researcher at DeepMind, one of the most advanced AI companies in the world), is also working on the alignment problem: http://www.tomeveritt.se/papers/alignment.pdf
You can read through list of grants granted by the Future of Life institute for AI Safety research, almost all of which are to researchers associated with respected universities, not laymen, here: https://futureoflife.org/ai-safety-research/