I thought it'd be a cool story to interview academics and robotics professionals about the popular notion of a robot takeover, but four big names in the area declined to talk to me. A fifth person with robo street cred told me on background that people in the community fear that publicly talking about these topics could hurt their credibility, and that they think the topic has already been explained well enough.

I wonder who these top 4-5 people are, in the author's opinion?