It would surely help if companies stopped slapping the AI label onto everything. I've seen washing machines and ovens claiming using AI these days. Being wary of this idiocy is perfectly reasonable.

Agree, but that said, if there was AI branding on any hardware I was about to purchase, I'd check and double check that it doesn't send all my data to some cloud service.

It doesn't show anything of the sort. They would somehow slab an LLM AI interface even on HDD enclosures if they could and call it a "smart enclosure" and it would be nothing but a surveillance entshittification central.

There is a very clear reason why there is a backlash against everything called AI, it is because almost all of it is predatory surveillance entshittification projects forced upon consumers who never asked for it.

The "hur dur AI has always been around" is a fallacy which does not adress the actual problem.

I think some people are missing your sarcasm