The problem is that AI enables ICE/Gestapo (or any other bad actor) to be much more Gestapo-y. Both mass disinformation and mass surveilance become much easier with it. Potentially, warfare as well, enabling a trillionaire shitstain to control a literal army of robots. So it works as a multiplier to your fear, unfortunately. To me, that is the real danger of AI, not the hypothetical threat of machines exterminating humanity Terminator style.

Why is it not here yet?!

Surely in the age of self-promoting narcissists we would hear about these break-throughs in all the media?.. Not just “it can potentially cure cancer if you give us another $tn”, the real results under review by relevant authorities/academics. Moreover, these breakthroughs do require a shitload of compute, but I do not see how a chatbot could be helpful with it. Other than, of course, stealing the preprinted work of some academic and claiming it their own, as recently with OpenAI Navier–Stokes equations conundrum. Can you imagine how many problems like that would already be solved if all these billions were spent on it, rather than chatbots drawing glossy pics?..