What we want is not what we get unless it makes bank. Nobody (generalizing here) works to better humanity, they work to get money. if it aligns well that’s just shear luck. The world needs a lot more people who want see the world to succeed.
I think this is a highly pessimistic view. While I know many that are profit motivated and I won't argue that this isn't the majority, I know many people that just want to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I'll tell you that personally my dream is to just be able to research and not worry about constraints like publishing (I'd rather open blog) or computational constraints (don't need a data center. A few dozen A100s is more than enough). There are a lot of people like me and a lot that would be like that if they didn't have financial constraints. Having this dream is a privilege and even I didn't have it when I was living paycheck to paycheck.
So I think if you want to see more people with my dream then push towards a post scarce world. We'll still have plenty of resource constraints, but it does change the game a lot. I think you'll see more artists as well. A new renaissance. But I fear the transitionary period might be quite difficult and disruptive. I do think such a future has a fairly good probability of happening within many of our lifetimes and almost guaranteed if we actively pushed for it (or solved adjacent problems like HLI).
So don't be so pessimistic. There's millions of people out there that are interested in pushing the bounds of human knowledge because that's what they want. I'd argue that physicists and mathematicians wouldn't exist if this weren't true. They get paid shit for extremely difficult work. We could say the same about many sciences. While not all of these people are in it for bettering humanity (just for pursuing knowledge) it often aligns and there is a decent portion who believe this is the point of science and our purpose, as humans, in life.
While I see what you are saying and there are people doing the good work, when I read of companies circumventing the Russian embargo knowing full well their stuff gets turned into weapons, and people without thought buying the cheapest shit from amazon and alibaba made in dire circumstances, I am not so sure, or at least, do not see enough awareness for a treshold changing outcome. Some play the economic game on a criminal level, and some profit without giving back and without scruples.
