[VikingCoder]

Can you guarantee the technology won't fall into enemy hands?

Can you guarantee our government won't initiate illegal aggression?

Won't subvert democracies?

Won't have another Gulf of Tonkin?

Won't target the families of terrorists, as our current President has suggested?

No, you can't guarantee those things.

Guns don't kill people, people do. And people are sometimes evil, and sometimes break the law, and sometimes make mistakes. And sometimes the gun is stolen. So maybe some engineers don't want their company to make any guns.

You don't get to ask, "Would those angry Googlers be against the technology always being used the way they intended?"

Instead you have to ask, "Is it possible for this technology to be used in ways those Googlers would object to?" And of course the answer is yes.

Many on the Manhattan project thought that bombing Nagasaki was completely unnecessary. Some probably thought Hiroshima was unnecessary, that a demonstration of the power would be sufficient.

[nyolfen]

can you guarantee that this technology won’t be independently developed by a hostile foreign power?

barring catastrophy, it’s close to 100% inevitable that militaries will become largely autonomized in the coming decades.

[VikingCoder]

If I were given the choice, I would support a country that has a track record that I am proud of.

Since I have serious reservations about the track record of the United States, I have to wonder if the people I consider the worst are more likely to establish dominance faster than some other country that I like better.

Maybe I should be working to establish the dominance of the country I think is some combination of the best, and the most likely to win that race (if I and my peers were to help them.)

Or, I could acknowledge that the United States is the most likely to establish dominance, and I should be working my ass off to ensure the US will be the best version of itself that it could be.