I think profit steers AI much like X-rated stuff steered the internet to begin with

 For example, there might not be an internet if there wasn't x-rated things that kept it going in the beginning. Of course it is also true that one must be more realistic about the phases of how the Internet Began.

The Internet Began with DARPA by creating redundant computers at each larger city in case of Nuclear war so each city and area of the country could rebuild with enough good information and know how on all these big huge computers that were all having the same knowledge on all of them in case one or more of them was nuked nationwide.

Then Colleges started using something like present day texting and emails to share discoveries among themselves first just in the U.S. but then somehow this also spread around the world.

The Internet began to evolve from all the colleges and research facilities all over the world. Then HTML was created which made the actual World Wide Web feasible. 

Then I learned HTML starting around when Windows 95 came out from Microsoft in the early 1990s.

However, the internet was financed more likely by x-rated stuff and people selling women especially for sex all over the world, unfortunately.

In the same way it is unfortunate that Profit is also steering AI worldwide too. It's hard to say how this will effect AI in the short or long run too.

However, AI is also affected greatly in it's own way by the war between Ukraine and Russia and the war between Israel and everyone else and the war between the U.S. and Iran as well.

Great leaps happen in technology always during wars of all kinds worldwide and this is no exception either now.