Oh I’m not at all assigning a universally positive morals to the hypothetical researchers or idealism. I think people would do more or less what their reality pushes them to do. In a reality where studying AI leads to the shortest path from working class to early retirement, I expect people to do what that industry does. AI slop generators for example at untold socioeconomic cost. In a different reality where AI is just another research field, like material science, where studying it does not allow for getting rich quick but leads to careers in automation in various other fields, I expect people interested in it to do that. Just like they do in many other fields of research and development. In this sense someone with high degree of state control over private capital and economic planning could do things differrently than what we observe the market doing in the US. I’m not saying that’s what they would do for sure and that things would be amazingly great. The Chinese have stated they are planning to go this route though.