For one thing, we vote for the governments who are now definitely going to heavily regulate them after this fiasco.
But more generally, public perception just is important to any large and broadly targeted enterprise, because "the public" approaches "our customer base" as such an enterprise scales up. Think of companies like Google or Microsoft or Meta or Amazon; essentially everyone (in the US) uses their services in some form or another, so the perception of "the public" is indistinguishable from the perception of "the people who use our services". ChatGPT isn't quite at that point yet, but it's close enough.
But more generally, public perception just is important to any large and broadly targeted enterprise, because "the public" approaches "our customer base" as such an enterprise scales up. Think of companies like Google or Microsoft or Meta or Amazon; essentially everyone (in the US) uses their services in some form or another, so the perception of "the public" is indistinguishable from the perception of "the people who use our services". ChatGPT isn't quite at that point yet, but it's close enough.