> it's impossible to have this discussion with someone who will not touch generative AI tools with a 10 foot pole.

Why? Would you say the same if the topic was about recreational drugs? Or, to bring it closer to home, if the topic was about social media?

I think you're being disingenuous by making the analogy to religious people refusing to read a certain book. A book is a foundational source of information. OTOH, one can be informed about GenAI without having used GenAI; you can study the math behind the model, the transformer architecture, etc---the foundational sources of information on this topic. If our goal is to "drop the politics, and discuss things on their technical merits" well I don't see how it can get more purely technical than that.