> the researchers involved didn't care because they wanted to be successful and figured they could just try to blame others for the consequences of their actions

Such an absurdly reductive take. Or how about just like nuclear energy and knives, they are incredibly useful, society advancing tools that can also be used to cause harm. It's not as if AI can only be used for warfare. And like pretty much every technology, it ends up being used 99.9% for good, and 0.1% for evil.