I can't speak for anyone else, but for me:
--Short term AI risks like you mention definitely increase X-risk, because they make it harder to solve AI risk (and other x-risks too, though I think those are less probable)
--I currently think there are things we can do about it, but they seem difficult: Figuring out what regulations would be good and then successfully getting them passed, probably against opposition, and definitely against competition from other interest groups with other issues.
--It's certainly a neglected issue compared to many hot-button political topics. I would love to see more attention paid to it and more smart people working on it. I just think it's probably not more neglected than AI risk reduction.

Basically, I think this stuff is currently at the "There should be a couple EAs seriously investigating this, to see how probable and large the danger is and try to brainstorm tractible solutions."  If you want to be such an EA, I encourage you to do so, and would be happy to read and give comments on drafts, video chat to discuss, etc. If no one else was doing it, I might do it myself even. (Like I said, I am working on a post about persuasion tools, motivated by feeling that someone should be talking about this...)

I think probably such an investigation will only confirm my current opinions (yup, we should focus on AI risk reduction directly rather than on raising the sanity waterline via reducing short-term risk) but there's a decent chance that it would chance my mind and make me recommend more people switch from AI risk stuff to this stuff.