They're wrong. They're right about it being cope, but the cope is not from people in fear.

The people who feel fear about AI taking their jobs or doing worse things are not coping. They're saying all this is real and impressive and that that is why they are terrified.

The people saying it's bad and lies and they stole the answer and a million other things are just in tribal mode throwing whatever at the wall to defer to the pre-existing conclusion that AI is a corporate hoax. AI would have to be real to fear it in this professional and existential way, but they know it's fake, so they're not afraid.

It's sometimes done with more subtlety, like "it just comes up with some proofs by connecting existing things, it is not producing new insights, it's not creative or truly generating ideas". Which may be partly true. The denialism is shifted into refusing to acknowledge that within 20, or 2, years it probably will be producing new insights.