I've been asking myself this since AI started to become useful.

Most people would guess it threatens their identity. Sensitive intellectuals who found a way to feel safe by acquiring deep domain-specific expertise suddenly feel vulnerable.

In addition, a programmer's job, on the whole, has always been something like modelling the world in a predictable way so as to minimise surprise.

When things change at this rate/scale, it also goes against deep rooted feelings about the way things should work (they shouldn't change!)

Change forces all of us to continually adapt and to not rest on our laurels. Laziness is totally understandable, as is the resulting anger, but there's no running away from entropy :}