I agree that we should make a point of addressing downsides. I also agree that a writer who wants to talk meaningfully about the potential effects of technology should try to make sure that they don't just imagine things, wildly.

But I also feel compelled to point out that most of the useful and engaging thought experiments done by scientists in the past have been speculations about how some new technology will change everything. Speculation about the direction of computers and the role of virtual reality in our lives. Speculation about the AI singularity. Speculation about technological advancement in general and what it means for the Great Filter. And speculation about more mundane things like self-driving cars, computers that look like sheets of paper that you can hold in your hand (precursor to the iPad), and the internet (Ender's Game had a fully functioning internet, though it seems Orson Scott Card didn't forecast how much it would be used for porn).

Actually from those examples it's also worth noting that our baseless dreams about the future of technology are often what shape the future of technology.

Here's an alterative way of thinking about it; many people's imaginings of the future of a technology are corrupted by their emotions or their ideology. They're not making predictions out of any desire to genuinely understand what will happen, or even to imagine what will happen. Their predictions are instrumental--meant to indulge their predilection for doom and gloom, or to rave about a product that enchants them. That should probably stop.