This could be true but, no matter what, a streetwise person would never trust him after he has taken the money. If he wanted his opinion on AI to be trusted then he should have made his money some other way.
The "good" argument is that people trust other people's opinion more who have not been paid to advertise. I trust the doctor who personally recommends a drug more than the doctor who was paid to recommend the drug - even if they recommended the drug before they were paid. That's a fact of life, it's not "character assassination". Tao didn't do anything wrong by making an ad but he can't expect people to take his opinion seriously after someone gave him a lot of money to state an opinion that favors them.
It's proper to suspect arguments that are motivated by self-interest. The stronger that self-interest, the more one should suspect the argument. This is what you're saying?
In that case, the anti-AI Luddite arguments are maximally impeached, since they are motivated by fear of personal disaster. Tao doesn't need AI to succeed; the Luddites desperately need it to fail. So they are willing to say anything, jumping right to ad hominem arguments when they lack any real substantive rebuttal.
I don’t know that Terry much cares about the opinions of people who judge claims based on innuendo and cynicism rather than the actual merits of the claim.
Quid pro quo or not, he got paid to say what he's already been saying for the last few years.