As to why A.I. is being held up as a threat, well tracking and loss of privacy should be top of the list due to the threat of over analysing the population and

As to why A.I. is being held up as a threat, well tracking and loss of privacy should be top of the list due to the threat of over analysing the population and acting on the data. But IMO at the moment there is a push on behalf of whomever to try and put A.I. back in the bottle ... for a time at least ... but anyone half smart knows most of the companies already involved, will be working overtime to make it such that when it was allowed back out, it would be a controlled product, purposely hard for the average user to get information and help easy, without paying much money. For a real end of a person's existence ... if one was to give A.I. the ability to push the button or control traffic or any scenario it was in control where if something small could go wrong resulting in death ... there's always the possibility for it to be abused. Presently I think a case could easily be made that the present piss poor web search results available to the general public, are more of a threat to humanity. Poorer education levels are more likely the bigger threat to humanity though.