It's more. Replacing horses with cars is just technological progression. And using transportation instead of walking makes it possible to reach places you cannot reach by walking.
AI is more like nuclear tech. Only everyone has access to it. Sure, it's usefull for some purposes, but also incredible dangerous and wasteful. A single plant can pollute the whole world and some people do it intentionally and use it for malicious purposes.
AI in games is child's play in comparison how AI is used and abused outside of games. AI scams on social media are rampant. Also the propaganda, misinformation and the abuse of algorithms to make people addicted to slop videos and content.
Games have the benefit that they are not easy access short attention span content. You cannot doom scroll games. Yet some "developers" of course try.