I think it all comes down to economics. Someone has to pay to power the machines, which means that they have to generate revenue, which means that they need to have customers.
As long as the customers are humans, or at least owned by humans, the system is self-regulating. If machines are ever able to own property, they could be each other's customers and humans might be at risk.
Of course, at some level of sentience, preventing machines from owning property brings it's own set of ethical questions. At any rate, for the foreseeable future, I agree with you. People like Musk and Gates and Hawking are overselling the risk.
The Quillette article looks interesting. Reading now. Thanks for the link!
Good assessment. The fear with AI is closely linked to the fear of destroying jobs, so I believe you're right.
I fear more powerful AI in the hands of other humans than I fear the AI itself. For example, I heard that your uncompleted searches on Google are cached and can be used in court against you. Is this true? I couldn't find anything online.
I hadn't heard anything about that, but it wouldn't surprise me. I have read on multiple occasions that Facebook archives the status updates that you type but then decide not to post.