There have been many examples of companies inventing new technology, then failing to take it to market until a competitor copied the ideas. The classic example

There have been many examples of companies inventing new technology, then failing to take it to market until a competitor copied the ideas. The classic example is Apple and Xerox PARC. The criticism in this case is that while icons and GUIs are obviously harmless (so it's good we got them out of the lab!), maybe AI is the kind of tech we should have let researchers play with for a while longer, before we started an arms race that puts it in everyone's house.