If the price difference is justified, I can't argue with a refurb. Most of my purchases from Dell (mainly laptops, a couple monitors) in the past 10+ years have been refurbs from the outlet. On a sale, about 20-30% discount over new, and they are essentially like-new with full warranties, etc. Never really had a problem except one laptop that was a little wonky at hte start, but got fixed and went on to last 7 years.
If someone is offering me $50 off a $800 device that has been "seller refurbished" , yeah, I'm just gonna buy new.
Forget the Terminator scenario. We don't need to invoke science fiction to imagine the atrocities that might result from an unchecked increase in military and law enforcement power. AI that obeys people is just as scary as AI that doesn't. Humans are plenty capable of atrocities on our own. Just look at history. And regulation is unlikely to save us from government abuse of AI; quite the opposite in fact.
So with that said, I find the "what about existing AI problems" and especially the "I don't like Musk comments" annoying. The current issues aren't as severe as what we could be facing in the not too distant future, and Musk is pretty tangential to that concern.