I've thought about this a bit as well, and I think it's almost like this toxic concoction of incentive (how can "we" hype this until and make boatloads of money

I've thought about this a bit as well, and I think it's almost like this toxic concoction of incentive (how can "we" hype this until and make boatloads of money off of it, coupled with a genuine (if sub-conscious) desire to be seen as a visionary/great engineer who "created artificial life." I mean, at least on HN, I see lots of this aspirational attitude for living the sci-fi future circa. Star trek, ex-machina, etc, while couching their language in professions of expertise now that the firehose of cash has turned on. Also there is the general hubris in all this to only look at the new and shiny, I remember when there was that pizza robot (some multi-dimension axis hand thing) that cost whatever in building and research, when the costco pizza "robot" is pretty darn good, but doesn't sell as "futuristic/cool" because its a spigot on a servo.