There is a specific kind of credibility trap that results from marketing a technology through its own danger. The AI industry built its case for investment and attention on the scale of disruption it would cause — 20% unemployment, obsolete professions, a fundamentally restructured labor market . These were not reluctant admissions extracted by skeptical journalists. They were central claims, made confidently, used to demonstrate that the technology was serious enough to warrant the valuations and the urgency. The labs treated disruption forecasts as a feature, not a liability.