It's clear people who make these comments don't understand AI, ML and the deep subjects the field touches. There are deep questions about what learning and intelligence IS that these folks are trying to answer. Otherwise ML is just curve fitting and if you are satisfied with that that's fine but I'm not satisfied with curve fitting.

People who criticize the kind of work AI researches do in regards to ethics have a shallow knowledge of AI, ML and the field in general. But that's just my opinion.