No, they can make money without stealing. They just choose to steal and lie about it either way. It’s the worst kind of justification.
The investors are predominantly made up of the Rationalist Society. It doesn’t matter whether or not AI “makes money”. It matters that the development is steered as quickly as possible towards an end product of producing as much propaganda as possible.
The bottom line barely even matters in the bigger picture. If you’re paying someone to make propaganda, and the best way to do that is to steal from the masses, then they’ll do it regardless of whether or not the business model is “profitable” or not.
The lines drawn for AI are drawn by people who want to use it for misinformation and control. The justifications make it seem like the lines were drawn around a monetary system. No, that’s wrong.
Who cares about profitability when people are paying you under the table to run a mass crime ring.