are artificial sweeteners as bad as some people say or very safe as some people say ?

There are artificial sweetners that are good and those that are bad, the one you described contains aspartme and isnt recommended in high doses. They do have artificial sweetners that dont contain it, make sure your checking the labels.

This has a lot to do with which “experts” you ask.

There are people who will immediately assume artificial sweeteners are bad because they do not meet their view of being natural and/or because they are products of large corporations.

There are people who sell the stuff that point to large scale studies (which they fund btw) that indicate it is as safe as water.

Personally I doubt they are good for you but they may not be bad either. In general the only non-caloric sweetener I use (when I have a choice anyway) is Stevia. It is an herbal sweetener that has been in use for over a century so it has been in use far longer than most artificial sweeteners.

One of the first artificial sweeteners was lead. Lead and most lead compounds taste sweet (don’t try it!!!!!). In Roman times it was discovered that foods cooked in lead vessels tasted sweetener but sadly they didn’t realize they were poisoning themselves. It has been recently confirmed that Pope Clement II died of “sugar of lead” poisoning. By the time Mozart was around using lead to sweeten cheap wines was illegal but still done and Mozart dying of lead poisoning is one of the theories of his early demise since he was known to drink substantial amounts of cheap wine.