Questions like this that embody existential crisis are bound to emerge in a thinking person's life. History is our guide. Science has faced such challenges alm

Questions like this that embody existential crisis are bound to emerge in a thinking person's life. History is our guide. Science has faced such challenges almost always, sometimes by the industry, sometimes by a government. How would have the Manhattan Project scientists (every brilliant scientist was related in some way) felt when General Groves took the charge of the atomic bomb? How about the Bikini Atoll Atomic Bomb testing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_testing_at_Bikini_Atoll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_testing_at_Bikini_Atol...)? Some say that when it comes to industry, this is an inevitable outcome of capitalism, the ism that prefers the "unequal but fair" acts to "equal but unfair" acts. One way out (of the psychological suffering) is to trust the overall human goodness (even gullibly). We should all support it with our actions, however. Suppose you are contributing to an open-source project. You do your "work" to the best of your ability and then trust that others will do the same. And when the feared dystopian future does arrive eventually, we can at least accept it solemnly. Have you considered academia? Many say that that is equally (or more) compromised (or just plain "bad"). I somehow think that the professors I grew up admiring and learning from can't be "all bad". Almost every US university has at least a few amazing professors and teachers who teach and contribute to research. Why not work with them? Your pay will be automatically limited (you are not after getting a tenure, are you?) and you won't have the guilt of amassing a fortune that eventually disillusions you. Some really difficult problems, on the other hand, will make you focus on work more than anything else. It may also make you use of AI tools meaningfully. If you like to teach, you may get to do that as well. That way, you can contribute to shape younger minds in more ways than one. Without working fiercely in your own private Idaho solving objective problems and rather blindly trusting others' conscience, I am not sure how you can remain sane.