You approve of the direct impact your employer has by delivering value to its customers, and you agree that AI could increase this value.
You’re concerned about the indirect effect on increasing the pace of AI progress generally, because you consider AI progress to be harmful. (You use the word “direct”, but “accelerating competitive dynamics between major research laboratories” certainly has only an indirect effect on AI progress, if it has any at all.)
I think the resolution here is quite simple: if you’re happy with the direct effects, don’t worry about the indirect ones. To quote Zeynep Tufekci:
Until there is substantial and repeated evidence otherwise, assume counterintuitive findings to be false, and second-order effects to be dwarfed by first-order ones in magnitude.
The indirect effects are probably smaller than you’re worrying they may be, and they may not even exist at all.
If I understand correctly:
You approve of the direct impact your employer has by delivering value to its customers, and you agree that AI could increase this value.
You’re concerned about the indirect effect on increasing the pace of AI progress generally, because you consider AI progress to be harmful. (You use the word “direct”, but “accelerating competitive dynamics between major research laboratories” certainly has only an indirect effect on AI progress, if it has any at all.)
I think the resolution here is quite simple: if you’re happy with the direct effects, don’t worry about the indirect ones. To quote Zeynep Tufekci:
The indirect effects are probably smaller than you’re worrying they may be, and they may not even exist at all.