Tech workers - like most people - are unaware of the extent of suffering that they don't directly perceive. You and I know that there are people suffering in third-world countries - but knowing is not understanding or awareness, and if we had to spend some time in the company of these people, our perspective would shift enormously and we would feel a much stronger urge to actually remedy these injustices.
Tech workers know that they are displacing workers, but again, knowing is not understanding. Hurling insults and making sly accusations is not going to convince anyone that they may lack perspective on this issue. I mean, take a look around this thread, take a look around other discussions - I don't see many people trying to convey their experience without painting the tech crowd as money hungry assholes.
Not to forget that AI isn't evil either. You can make many moral arguments for developing AI systems as fast as possible. The most emotionally effective point would be medical research - after all, who are we to place our own lives above the ones that may be saved with the help of future AI developments?
And another note: many tech workers argue that it is irrelevant whether or not they personally continue to develop AI, because someone most definitely will.
Also, there is no adversary. I would love for the AI skeptic crowd to make compelling and convincing arguments. We need people that warn about the problems introduced by AI and people that campaign for policies that address them, but we need them to do it in a way that would actually be able to change someone's mind. The reality is that we're not having the right discussions in a productive way; instead we pontificate endlessly on irrelevant but emotionally satisfying details.
> Sir, this is not a textbook, this is the comments section on a popular Internet website. If you want 'way more justification', you will have to wait for my thesis.
Do you really think there is no midpoint between making a massive, fundamental assertion about the stability of every human society without any further elaboration or studies and writing a textbook or thesis?