AI/ML barrier to entry is far simpler and vastly user friendly compared to crypto. Instant value return or gratification from ML products (GTPs and rest) is far more mainstream friendly.
Another view is the "loss" factor. Nobody, thus far, has has had their funds stolen or lost using ML products. I understand content creators and those who, unwillingly, contributed knowledge to learning systems did get circumvented but i'm talking about users/customers. Compare that to the negative stigma of crypto frauds and stereotypical association to illegal transactions.
Apples vs. rotten oranges in my opinion!
Crypto's sole usefulness remains in providing money transfers/liquidity in parts of the world where the local systems are failing or off-limits to the users.
Personally I don't partake - but they get a value in it, I guess. Who am I to judge?
the majority of people don't have formal training in probability and statistics, not to mention limit theorems and finance, so who cares how they view the stock market? I mean, I care, in the sense of educating people but most people don't really want to put the time in.
stocks and gambling both have risk, but only stocks reward many/most types of risk; gambling does not. The expected value of stocks is positive; gambling is not.
What people are trying to say about stocks is that they are stochastic, and so is gambling.
on the larger topic, Crypto also does not reward risk or offer a positive expected value. It's stochastic nature is driven by the changing opinions people have about it, or secondary effects from how much other stochastic markets might rely on it. Mining bitcoins is stochastic from the point of view of a miner, but not really from the point of view of the market or at any scale, but without a productive use case providing a reward, no postive expected value and the reward for risk ("you got a coin") is not above the cost of mining, at least not for long.