> Your argument seems to be that it's fine to break the law if the net outcome for society is positive.

In any other context, this would be known as "civil disobediance". It's generally considered something to applaud.

For what it's worth, I haven't made up my mind about the current state of AI. I haven't yet seen an ability for the systems to perform abstract reasoning, to _actually_ learn. (Show me an AI that has been fed with nothing but examples in languages A and B. Then demonstrate, conclusively, that it can apply the lessons it has learned in language M, which happens to be nothing like the first two.)