There are options other than money and virtue signaling for why you'd work a given job.
Some people might just like working with competent people, doing work near the forefront of their field, while still being in an environment where their work is shipped to a massively growing user base.
Even getting 1 of those 3 is not a guarantee in most jobs.
While your other comment stands, there is no separating yourself with the moral impetus of who you're working for.
If your boss is building a bomb to destroy a major city but you just want to work on hard technical problems and make good money at it, it doesn’t absolve you of your actions.
If you worked at OpenAI post "GPT-3 is too dangerous to open source, but also we're going to keep going", you are probably someone who more concerned the optics of working on something good or world changing.
And realistically most people I know well enough who work at Open AI and wouldn't claim the talent, or the shipping culture, or something similar are people who love the idea of being able to say they're going to solve all humanity's problems with "GPT 999, Guaranteed Societal Upheaval Edition."
Working at a employer that says they're doing good isn't the same as actually doing good.
Especially when said employer is doing cartoonishly villainous stuff like bragging how they'll need to build a doomsday bunker to protect their employees from all from the great evi... er good, their ultimate goal would foist upon the wider world.
Good point. I was thinking the "actually doing good". Absolutely there's a lot of empty corporate virtue signalling, and also some individuals like that. But there's still individuals who genuinely want to actually do good.
Some people might just like working with competent people, doing work near the forefront of their field, while still being in an environment where their work is shipped to a massively growing user base.
Even getting 1 of those 3 is not a guarantee in most jobs.