Perhaps not, but if you pick your moment right then permanently stopping the work of some of the most talented researchers there could very well make a difference. A spectacular incident that makes the headlines might also deter others - bright graduates might decide it's far safer to take up a different line of work, subcontractors and suppliers might decide doing business with AI firms isn't worth the danger, investors might figure the increased risk of loss of premises and equipment into their projections, that kind of thing.
If people genuinely believed AI takeover was a real, present and imminent threat, then they wouldn't just be publishing essays online, they'd be forming direct action groups, along the full spectrum of campaigning: all the way from awareness raising publicity campaigns, through picketing, blockades and sit-ins, up through Black Bloc type actions, right up to menacing intimidation campaigns and terrifying physical force operations. But I don't see any Butlerian Jihad getting started. Which tells me they don't actually believe this at all; they're just bigging up their own importance. 'Oh yes, our technology is so incredibly powerful, if it were done wrong then imagine what could happen! Keep the money coming to make sure it's done right instead! Then all that power can be ours instead!... I mean, uh, yours, Mr Investor sir.'
AI stock valuations don't make a bit of sense unless the technology turns out to be every bit as powerful as that. If they don't keep that thought alive, then the bubble bursts right now. That's what all this hot air is about, and that's why nobody really pulls a Miles Dyson at the AI research lab.
