And if you need examples of people being piledriven, you can browse my history a bit. :) Since I'm not doing anything with AI that would suffer "professionally" from backlash (such as might happen to an artist who becomes the target of anti-AI witch-hunters) I've not been shy about talking about the good things AI can do and how I use it. Or at calling out biased or inaccurate arguments against various AI applications. As a result I get a lot of downvotes.
Fundamentally, I think it's just that people are afraid. They're seeing a big risk from this new technology of losing their jobs, their lifestyles, and control over their lives. And that's a real concern that should be treated seriously, IMO. But fear is not a good cultivator of rational thought or honest discourse. It's not helping people work towards solving those real concerns.
Or we need to try to accommodate the needs that people actually have rather than telling them they should change what they need. That's somewhat more likely to actually work.