It's a yes-and situation of course. Pulling the trigger comes with its own blame, but let's not pretend that no one working on such technologies could see this kind of (mis)use coming.

True, maybe some of these researchers were encouraged by the misuse for profits. At the same time, the breakthroughs didn't depend on a single genius insight by a couple of reseachers, a Manhattan-type project or a tablet from aliens.

The results can be considered inevitable in the sense that reflects very capable people incrementally advancing the status quo as part of their research jobs. We need to build the necessary frameworks for dealing with this, and other advancements, because they will come irrespective of our wishes.

I think it's interesting that we don't have a well-known philosophical framework for discussing "could vs. should" problems in technology development. The argument comes up time and again; the response to my balrog comment was exactly what I was expecting - gun makers vs generals. I'm starting to think it's one of humanity's major blind spots.

It's a branch of ethics, surely worthy of a bit of square footage in an ivory tower.

Humanity, broadly, discusses ethics quite a bit and I think the philosophers among us have set us up with the tools to have good conversations about it.

But tech-adjacent people seem bored and dismissive by questions of ethics as a general rule. If you were in STEM in college, you may recall the groans and avoidance of the (likely mandatory) ethics courses among your cohort.

Bioethics is the most prominent example of such a study because of the possibility of immediate and direct harm on organisms. I agree it would be worthwhile to formalize an ethics framework for tech in general, we don't seem to have a proper title for such a field of study so you're right that we are blind to it as a society.