Set aside the ethics issues for the moment, the criticism that Google is neglecting alternatives to neural networks is probably reasonably fair.

But on the other hand, research labs or not, Google is still a commercial entity driven by a shorter term horizon than your average academic.

Google Research has probably subconsciously drifted towards areas (or at least applications) that can tangibly benefit Google in the near future. Neural networks might not be The Answer (TM), but they can deliver results today, and there's still untapped potential. Speech recognition, search, speech synthesis - all core Google products - have all benefited from neural networks, not to mention the broader applications like protein folding for DeepMind.

I'm hesitant to find fault in a corporate group that's doubling down on the stuff that's actually delivering results, even if it's probably not the path to AGI.

I probably wouldn't be so lenient with OpenAI, because they are (were) purely a research outfit, openly committed to AGI.