i've heard chomsky and others talk about how our knowledge of physics is so sophisticated now as compared to 50 or 80 years ago, that you have to have a PhD to

i've heard chomsky and others talk about how our knowledge of physics is so sophisticated now as compared to 50 or 80 years ago, that you have to have a PhD to even begin to understand how to talk about it intelligently. i feel like a lot of other computing-related concepts are approaching that same level of sophistication. i've usually been pretty good at not worrying about true understanding of various technologies, so the fact that i can't explain ai well, or that most ai is not even capable of offering an explanation of how they make their own decisions, is not so anxiety-producing to me (tho, parts of ai, and explainability, are real problems). but i do get anxious from constantly reading headlines from various substacks and other clickbaity and attention-seeking entities about how some new tech has basically already ended life on earth so we might as well just give up. i'm anxious enough already with real threats to the world -- nukes, global warming, social media, inequality/fascism/authoritarianism, etc.