The only thing that could possibly happen to protect people from this is to make AI illegal. That would be (a) impossible to enforce without draconian decrease in individual freedom, like keeping people stuffed in crates of packing foam instead of free to move around, and (b) absolutely horrible if it were successfully enforced.

AI is cheaper and easier to proliferate than any drug. We have not succeeded in controlling drugs, despite their physical requirements of mass and volume making them visible in reality, a feature AI does not share.

The attempt to control AI can and will destroy all our freedoms if we let it. Again, the only way to control something so ephemeral as computation is to massively restrict all freedom.