I'm still pretty bad at navigating social situations, so bear that in mind, but I've found that there's a difference between volunteering preferences vs being asked. If a group of people are chatting about all the things that they are doing with AI, then me saying something like "yeah, but AI sucks and it's worthless, it's unethical and hallucinates most of the time," isn't going to be well received. However, perhaps they'd ask how I'm using AI or such. I could mention that I don't use AI anymore. Then if they ask me why not, then they've requested my honest opinion, and they need to be prepared to hear it. If they push back, then it's like hey, you asked, did you only want me to tell you what you wanted to hear?

I'll also say that people that dominate conversations and insult others that don't agree with them drive me away very quickly, because that's abusive or bullying behavior, even if they do it with a smile or joke. Other people seem to like that kind of behavior though, because they're almost always popular for some reason.