I think they meant more along the lines of "This narrow problem today is not worth worrying about, because soon it will be a larger and bigger problem. "
I agree with you, but have you tried talking to people in real life about it? Almost nobody cares. If someone asks about it, I give them what I believe. I don't want them to take my words as truth, but I hope that it makes them research something, at least. If you are luck enough, 5% of people will do that, and the conversation will be possible.
Tech people give you better odds, but you still will find that most believe that AI is useless for something that you know that it's totally capable of doing. Damn, the last one I talked said that "Fable can't even do React"
Like hunger and diseases are global problems not to be worried about.