they mostly get ignored in serious circles but now that they're starting to get industry attention (see all the googlers on the MIRI board) and getting millions of dollars in annual income so it's starting to be an issue there's a nonzero amount of people who think that having read HPMOR is the same as knowing anything about AI or being an 'AI researcher', leading to a lot of people without credentials or a science background spreading a lot of nonsense and fear to the general public, and it's getting harder and harder to start conversations about real concerns in ongoing research without these people derailing said conversations to talk about basilisks and infinite catgirl machines or whatever