Although I agree it is a bit disingenuous to couch his predictions in scientific language, there is a positive side effect to his spiel. Who else can attract the resources to gather so many geniuses in a room? Scrolling through the list of advisors, I recognize such luminaries as Vint Cerf and Will Wright. Think of him as a story-teller, not a weatherman. The weatherman may help you plan for the immediate future. The story-teller or myth-maker primes the imagination to build a better future based on affirming deliberate values rather than history and habit. Inspiring, corralling, and funding the wills and insights of smart people in multiple fields is bound to produce something of value despite our failure to precisely anticipate the result.

In other words, there's some good in the ra ra. After all, inventions originate from "I want to believe."

I like your idea. When laws are too extremely opposed to natural inclination, they will be broken and sometimes with dire consequences. Make laws that correspond to how people generally think they themselves should act (not what they think others should do) and they will be followed more often than not. People often think laws apply only to others. Designing laws from a "what if I got caught" perspective makes them more reasonable and followable.

Also, even though tech rarely solves social problems like this one, it may help: mandate that a button on the phone be assigned to texting "Driving. Will respond later" and don't penalize people for pressing it, much the same way it's not explicitly illegal to turn off your radio while in motion.