I also don't understand the reaction. The AI Village seems to be based on a flawed understanding of LLMs and what they are capable of but at least it is an open project and useful as knowledge gathering. Annoying spam emails are about what I would expect, but it is useful as an earnest demonstration of their effectiveness. I can understand anger at the direction of the tech in general, and there is something grotesque about the emails, but I can find much more disturbing spam if I go check my inbox. It seems like an overreaction.

It is an interesting comparison. Databases are objectively the more important technology, if we somehow lost AI the world would be equal parts disappointed and relieved. If we somehow lost database technology we'd be facing a dystopian nightmare.

If we cure all disease in the next 10-15 years, databases will be just as important as AI to that outcome. Databases supported a technology renaissance that reshaped the world on a level that is difficult to comprehend. But because most of the world doesn't interact directly with databases, as a technology it is not the focus of enthusiastic rhetoric.

LLMs are further along tech-chain and they might be an important part of world-changing human achievements, we won't know until we get there. In contrast, we can be certain databases were important. I imagine the people who were influential in their advancement understood how important the tech would be, even if they didn't breathlessly go on about it.