I think the response is that AI labs based their whole marketing/PR building the idea they are the 21st century Manhattan project. So they need to continuously justify the level of spending and commitment by showing how dangerous that is.

But is it really like nuclear weapons? I personally don’t buy into that framing at all. The idea that we have to push LLMs as far as possible, right now, or we are doomed is always stated or implied but not argued, and it’s a very loaded belief