Im not arguing one way or another, I'm just pointing out a potential fatigue. It's difficult to see how this technology is relatively any more transformative than any of the others.
> Every new form was said to be a herald of the end times,
The two world wars and surrounding economic upheaval arguably came close to that in many ways. "We somehow managed to survive previous technological advances" is hardly a convincing argument that we need not worry about the implications of a new technology.
> and yet here we are, in many ways stronger than ever.
The implication doesn't follow. You haven't explained how you would differentiate a system that had plenty of safety margin left from one that was on the brink of collapse. Without that distinction the statement is no more than hand waving.
> Im not arguing one way or another
You certainly seem to be taking a stance of "nothing to see here, this is business as usual, these recent developments pose no cause for concern".
> It's difficult to see how this technology is relatively any more transformative than any of the others.
It's difficult for you to see how computers being able to speak natural language on par with an undergrad is more transformative than long distance communication? You can't be serious. Prior to this you could only converse with another human.
People used to live in bubbles, sure, but when that bubble was the entire local community, required human interaction, and radio had yet to be invented the implications were vastly different.
I'm optimistic that carefully crafted algorithms could send things back in the other direction but that isn't how you make money so seemingly no one is making a serious effort.