Both utopian hype and apocalyptic dread around AI often serve instrumental purposes, especially when pushed by those selling products, securing investment, or shaping public policy. Both narratives are super effective at grabbing attention, which sells gadgets, software, content, and even whole lifestyles. These polarized narratives function like marketing tools:

1. Utopian Hype ("AI will save us")

Used to:

• Attract investors: Promise miraculous productivity, personalized education, automated medicine.

• Sell products: AI-as-magic makes even mundane tools seem revolutionary.

• Mask labor exploitation: Claim AI is "empowering" while workers label training data in click farms.

• Push deregulation: Frame oversight as holding back progress or human flourishing.

2. Doom Narratives ("AI will destroy us")

Used to:

• Create urgency: Position certain players (often big tech) as the only ones capable of containing the threat.

• Secure control: Justify centralization under the guise of safety or ethics.

• Outcompete smaller actors: If AI is a potential extinction-level risk, then only trillion-dollar companies can be trusted to handle it.

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• Utopian hype promises a future where AI solves all our problems—work becomes easy, life is effortless, and productivity skyrockets. This sells the idea of AI as indispensable and positive, making people want to buy into the tech and the vision behind it.

• Doomsday hype feeds on our anxieties about losing control, being replaced, or even wiped out. Fear is a primal motivator; it drives clicks, views, debates, and spending on “safety” or control tech.

At its core:
It’s a marketing and media strategy. Amplify extremes because the middle ground is boring. Selling drama sells eyeballs and products. Hype about “superintelligence” or “conscious AI” distracts from how real profits are made: surveillance, automation, subscription models, data harvesting.  Utopia/dystopia talk often functions like a mythos wrapped around a business model. The future is sold in grand narratives, while what's actually delivered is often a slightly better vacuum cleaner.